LINCOLN,  LABOR 


AND 


SLAVERY 


A  CHAPTER 

FROM  THE 

SOCIAL  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 
By 

HERMAN  SCHLUTER 


.:-.       :•:    .    . 


1913 


SOCIALIST  LITERATURE  CO. 
NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT,  1913 

By 

HERMAN  SCHLOTER 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

PREFACE    5 

I.  ECONOMIC    ANTAGONISM    AND    PO- 
LITICAL   STRUGGLE 13 

1.  Historical     Review 13 

2.  Economic    Contrast 18 

3.  Political   Struggle 22 

II.  THE   WORKINGMEN   AND   CHATTEL 

SLAVERY  34 

1.  The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  North 

and  Slavery 34 

2.  The  German  Workingmen  in  America 

and    Slavery 70 

.    3.  The     White     Workingmen     of     the 

South   84 

4.  The    Workingmen    of    England    and 

Negro    Slavery 103 

III.  FREE  LABOR  BEFORE  THE  SENATE 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 113 

IV.  THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

AND    THE   LABOR    MOVEMENT....     123 

1.  General     Condition     of     the     Labor 

Movement    123 

2.  The    Attitude    of    the    Workingmen 

towards    the    War 128 

3.  Effects  of  the  War  on  Labor..  137 


4  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

V.  ABRAHAM      LINCOLN      AND      THE 

WORKING      CLASS 143 

1.  The    English    Workingmen    and    the 

Civil  War  143 

2.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Working- 

men  of  England 157 

3.  Lincoln's  Attitude  towards  the  Work- 

ing Class 168 

VI.  THE  INTERNATIONAL  WORKING- 
MEN'S  ASSOCIATION  AND  THE 
AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR 186 

1.  Address   of   the    General    Council   to 

Abraham   Lincoln 186 

2.  Address   of   the    General    Council    of 

the  International  Workingmen's 
Association  to  President  Andrew 
Johnson 193 

3.  Address   of   the   General    Council   to 

the  People  of  the  United  States...     198 

VII.  THE    LABOR    MOVEMENT    DURING 

THE   CIVIL   WAR 202 

1.  The  Draft  Riot  in  New  York 202 

2.  Laws  Against  Labor  Organizations..     210 

3.  Military      Interference      in      Labor 

Troubles    215 

4.  White  Slavery 224 


PREFACE 


This  book  has  a  two-fold  purpose:  First,  to 
throw  light  upon  the  position  taken  by  the  work- 
ing class  and  the  international  labor  movement 
regarding  chattel  slavery;  secondly,  to  indicate 
the  attitude  taken  by  one  of  the  most  famous 
characters  in  the  struggle  for  the  emancipation 
of  the  Negro,  Abraham  Lincoln,  towards  the  la- 
bor question  and  the  working  class. 

The  author's  standpoint  in  the  treatment  of 
this  subject  is  that  of  historical  materialism,  first 
brought  into  the  science  of  history  by  Karl  Marx 
and  Friedrich  Engels.  According  to  this  his- 
torical conception  the  political  and  intellectual 
phenomena  of  history  stand  in  the  most  intimate 
relation  with  the  economic  and  social  events  in 
society.  It  is  the  economic  production,  and  the 
division  of  society  into  classes  caused  thereby, 


6  PREFACE 

which  constitutes  the  foundation  of  the  political 
and  intellectual  history  of  any  given  epoch.  The 
division  of  society  into  classes  and  their  antagon- 
istic interests  necessitate  the  conflict  of  classes, 
the  class  struggle,  within  this  society.  Feudal, 
absolutistic,  bourgeois  and  proletarian  interests 
in  a  given  epoch  of  society  become  solidified  into 
principles,  into  ideas  of  these  specific  classes,  and 
produce  by  their  contentions  with  one  another 
universal  history.  This  history  offers  us  the 
spectacle  of  a  series  of  struggles  which  have  taken 
place  between  the  ruled  and  the  ruling,  the  ex- 
ploited and  the  exploiting  classes,  in  the  various 
phases  of  historical  development — struggles  from 
which  modern  bourgeois  society  is  not  exempt. 

f~~In  our  present  society  class  antagonism  rests 
on  the  exploitation  and  domination  of  the  work- 
ing classes,  who  are  deprived  of  the  means  of 
production,  by  the  owners  of  these  means  of 
production,  the  capitalists.  The  owners  of  the 
soil,  of  the  factories  and  machinery,  of  the  means 
of  communication,  and  all  other  instruments  of 
production,  constitute  the  ruling  class  precisely 
because  they  own  these  means  of  production. 
The  workers  constitute  the  subjected  and  ex- 
ploited class  precisely  because  they  are  excluded 
from  the  ownership  of  these  means  of  produc- 
tion. These  two  classes  of  modern  society,  the 
capitalists  and  the  proletarians,  or  workingmen, 
are  therefore  antagonistic  to  each  other  alike  in 


PREFACE  7 

their  interests  and  in  their  ideas.  The  antagon- 
ism of  classes  naturally  produces  struggles  which, 
with  continued  development,  will  assume  larger 
and  larger  dimensions.  The  labor  movement  and 
the  workingmen's  organizations  are  the  expres- 
sion of  these  class  antagonisms  from  the  side  of 
the  working  class.  Instinctively  the  workingmen 
turn  against  the-  bourgeois.  This  class  instinct 
changes  with  increasing  antagonism  and  the 
greater  understanding  caused  thereby  into  class 
consciousness.  The  class  struggle  assumes 
greater  dimensions  and  more  definite  outlines. 

We  now  see  what  a  mistaken  notion  it  is  to 
represent  the  class  consciousness  of  the  working- 
men  merely  as  the  result  of  the  agitation  of  labor 
leaders.  It  is  rather  the  natural  result  of  social 
evolution,  of  the  increasing  antagonism  between 
the  interests  of  the  exploited  and  the  exploit-  J 
ing  classes. 

It  is  from  the  standpoint  of  this  materialistic 
conception  of  history  that  those  economic  and 
political  questions  which  the  agitation  and  the 
struggles  in  behalf  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
Negro  slaves  brought  to  the  fore,  are  considered 
in  this  book.  The  position  of  the  early  labor 
movement  in  relation  to  the  agitation  for  the  abo- 
lition of  chattel  slavery;  the  economic  antagonism 
between  the  North  and  the  South  and  the  inevi- 
tability of  the  conflict  resulting  therefrom,  and 
the  position  of  the  international  labor  movement 


8  PREFACE 

in  relation  to  the  War  of  Secession,  are  consid- 
ered from  this  point  of  view — namely,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  working  class.  The  present 
work  is  consequently  not  impartial,  does  not  in- 
tend to  be  impartial.  There  is  indeed  no  "impar- 
tial" history.  The  historian  reflects  history  as 
he  sees  it,  and  he  sees  it  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  class  whose  interests  he  himself  represents, 
whose  opinions  and  ideas  he  shares,  whose 
struggles  are  also  his  struggles.  The  writer  of 
this  work  takes  the  position  of  the  most  advanced 
section  of  the  labor  movement. 

The  part  which  the  working  class,  foreigners 
as  well  as  Americans,  played  in  the  question  of 
Negro   slavery   and   in   the   struggles   resulting 
therefrom,  has  never  been  connectedly  treated. 
And  yet  this  part  is  well  worth  the  attention  of 
the  historian.    It  is  very  questionable  whether  the 
United    States   could    have   passed  through  the 
great  crisis  into  which  it  was  thrown  by  the  se- 
cession of  the  Southern  States,    or   could  have 
carried   to   a   victorious   finish   the   tremendous 
struggle  for  its  existence  which  ended  with  the 
j  overthrow  of  chattel    slavery,    if    the    working 
!  classes  of  all  countries,  and  the  young  interna- 
tional labor  movement,  at  that  time  only  begin- 
jiing,  had  not  helpfully  stood  by  its  side. 

The  United  States  is  indeed  under  the  heavi- 
est obligations  to  the  workingmen,  especially  to 
the  workingmen  of  England.  The  attitude  of  the 


PREFACE  9 

English  working  class  during  the  gloomiest 
period  of  the  North  American  Republic  consti- 
tutes one  of  the  brightest  pages  in  the  history  of 
the  labor  movement.  It  is  a  subject  which  has 
not  only  not  received  the  attention  it  deserves 
at  the  hands  of  bourgeois  historians,  but  has 
even  been  deliberately  ignored  by  them. 

Thus  it  happens,  that  even  in  the  ranks  of  the 
American  labor  movement  but  few  are  aware  that 
the  United  States  probably  owes  its  existence  to 
the  attitude  of  the  working  class  of  England. 
For  it  was  the  working  class,  and  the  working 
class  only,  which  then  opposed  in  England  the  war 
which  the  ruling  classes  of  that  country,  with  the 
Government  at  their  head,  were  about  to  declare 
in  favor  of  the  seceding  Southern  States  against 
the  Northern  States  of  the  Union.  It  was  the 
working  class  of  England  which,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  leaders,  the  best  that  ever  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  English  labor  movement,  through  its 
determined  attitude  prevented  the  intended  war, 
a  war  which  would  have  added  enormously  to  the 
perils  by  which  at  that  time  the  United  States 
was  surrounded.  The  representatives  of  the  Gov- 
ernment at  Washington  spoke  indeed  only  of  the 
"popular  sentiment"  in  England  in  favor  of  the 
North.  They  were  ignorant  of  the  division  of 
classes  in  society,  and  they  failed  to  perceive  that 
it  was  the  English  working  class  which  backed 
this  "popular  sentiment,"  and  that  this  class  divi- 


10  PREFACE 

sion  was  the  cause  of  the  workingmen  taking 
sides  against  the  ruling  class  of  their  country, 

fSecause  the  continuance  of  unfree  labor  was  an 
obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  development  of  free 

.  labor. 

v» 

Among  the  few  in  Washington  who  at  that 
time  recognized  the  fact  that  it  was  the  working- 
men  of  England,  and  these  only,  who  stood  be- 
hind the  "popular  sentiment"  in  favor  of  the 
North,  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  In  his  answer 
to  an  address  of  the  workingmen  of  Manchester 
he  declared  the  attitude  of  the  English  working 
class  on  the  question  of  Negro  slavery,  to  be  "an 
instance  of  sublime  Christian  heroism  which  has 
not  been  surpassed  in  any  age  or  in  any  country." 

Lincoln's  keener  insight  in  this  case  does  not 
prove  that  he  was  equally  clear-sighted  in  the  mat- 
ter of  the  labor  movement  and  all  that  it  implies, 
or  that  he  arrived  at  a  clear  understanding  of  it. 
His  public  utterances  in  regard  to  his  position 
toward  the  working  class,  as  well  as  in  regard  to 
his  views  on  the  labor  movement,  reveal  no  spe- 
cial clarity.  He  did  not  recognize  the  significance 
of  the  labor  movement  and  its  struggles ;  he  could 
not  recognize  it.  In  his  time  the  American  labor 
movement  was  still  in  its  infancy.  Only  in  the 
Eastern  section  of  the  country,  where  manufac- 
ture had  begun  to  develop,  could  its  beginning 
be  discerned.  Lincoln  himself  did  not  come 
into  touch  with  the  American  labor  movement, 


PREFACE  11 

at  least  not  into  close  touch,  and  it  was  therefore 
perfectly  explicable  why  he  could  not  reach  de- 
finite conclusions  concerning  the  aims  of  this 
movement,  its  tasks  and  the  economic  causes 
which  gave  rise  to  it. 

In  the  present  work  the  author  has  attempted 
to  determine  Lincoln's  position  toward  the  work- 
ing class.  In  this  attempt  he  has  examined  all  the 
documents  and  speeches  of  Lincoln  relating  to 
workingmen.  If  it  should  appear  that  Lincoln 
was  not  a  man  who  arrived  at  clear  views  in  re- 
gard to  the  labor  movement  and  to  a  knowledge 
of  its  causes,  no  reproach  is  thereby  intended.  He 
was  not  a  member  of  the  class  of  industrial 
workers,  but  a  representative  of  the  lower  middle 
class  (known  in  Europe  as  the  petit  bourgeoisie), 
which  in  conjunction  with  the  farmers  constituted 
the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  in  his  time.  He  championed  the  interests 
of  this  middle  class  and  could  not  rise  above  its 
opinions.  And  how  small  was  the  effect  which 
the  labor  movement  made  on  public  opinion  in  the 
United  States  prior  to  the  Civil  War ! 

In  the  statement  of  his  subject  the  author  has 
preferred  not  only  to  support  his  assertions  by 
reference  to  documentary  evidence,  but  to  a  great 
extent  to  let  these  documents  speak  for  themselves. 
The  coherence  of  the  narrative  may  occasionally 
suffer  by  reason  of  the  use  of  so  many  quotations ; 
but  as  many  of  these  documents  are  rare  and  com- 


12  PREFACE 

paratively  inaccessible,  it  has  been  thought  best 
to  reproduce  them. 

The  author  is  indebted  to  Mr.  Algernon  Lee 
and  Mr.  W.  J.  Ghent  for  their  careful  reading 
of  the  manuscript. 

HERMAN    SCHLUTER. 
New  York,  Summer  of  1913. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ECONOMIC  ANTAGONISM  AND  POLITICAL 
STRUGGLE. 

1.    HISTORICAL  REVIEW. 

Long  before  a  bloody  civil  war  put  an  end  to 
chattel  slavery  in  the  United  States,  this  social  in- 
stitution was  the  source  of  all  kinds  of  economic 
antagonisms  which  found  expression  in  the  politi- 
cal life  of  the  nation.  Our  ante-bellum  political 
and  economic  history  can  be  understood  only  by 
a  consideration  of  Negro  slavery  and  all  pertain- 
ing to  it,  even  in  the  judgment  of  questions  which 
were  not  directly  related  to  it. 

The  entire  domestic  and  foreign  policy  of  the 
United  States  in  the  first  half  of  the  last  century 
was  defined  in  all  its  contents  through  slavery. 
The  opposing  interests  which  were  created 
through  the  existence  of  slavery  brought  about 
that  movement  and  that  conflict  within  the  ruling 
classes  of  the  country  which  finally  led  to  civil 
war.  What  came  to  be  decided  in  this  Civil  War 
was  not  so  much  the  question  whether  people 
within  the  United  States  should  be  held  as  slaves 
on  account  of  the  color  of  their  skin,  as  the  ques- 


14     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

tion  whether  the  interests  of  the  slaveholders  of 
the  South  or  the  interests  of  the  industrialists  and 
manufacturers  of  the  North  should  have  the  de- 
ciding voice  in  the  shaping  of  our  national  life. 

In  the  South  the  prevailing  mode  of  production 
was  slavery,  unf  ree  labor.  The  Southern  proprie- 
tors of  plantations  produced  their  staples — to- 
bacco, cotton,  rice,  sugar — by  means  of  Negroes 
who  were  their  personal  property,  whom  conse- 
quently they  were  obliged  to  feed  and  clothe,  but 
to  whom  they  did  not  have  to  pay  money  wages. 
In  the  North,  especially  after  the  second  war  with 
England  (1812-1815),  industries  developed  which 
employed  "free"  laborers — laborers  who  did  not 
sell  themselves  and  their  entire  time,  but  only 
their  labor  power  during  certain  hours  to  their 
employers  for  wages.  The  struggles  resulting 
from  these  antagonisms,  which  in  the  main  were 
struggles  waged  for  political  supremacy  in  the 
Union,  constitute  the  contents  of  the  political  de- 
velopment which  led  to  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

Changed  economic  conditions  produce  a  change 
in  the  opinions  and  ideas  of  men.  As  long  as  the 
possessing  classes  of  New  England  had  an  in- 
terest in  Negro  slavery,  they  manifested  no  hos- 
tility to  this  institution.  As  long  as  the  ships  of 
the  New  Englanders,  laden  with  rum  made  in 
New  England,  sailed  to  Africa  and  there  ex- 
changed their  rum  for  Negro  slaves,  whom  they 
carried  to  the  Southern  States  to  exchange  for 


HISTORICAL   REVIEW  15 

molasses,  which  in  turn  they  took  to  New  Eng- 
land, where  rum  was  made  out  of  it;  as  long  as 
this  circle — rum,  Negroes,  molasses,  rum — re- 
mained and  proved  to  be  profitable,  so  long  few 
voices  were  heard  in  New  England  demanding  the 
abolition  of  slavery. 

All  this  was  changed  when  modern  industry 
began  to  develop.  There  were  cotton  factories  in 
New  England  as  early  as  1790,  but  it  was  the 
second  war  with  England  which  carried  them  to 
prosperity.  By  the  interruption  of  its  commerce 
with  England  the  United  States  was  cut  off  from 
its  source  of  supplies  and  thrown  upon  its  own 
resources.  The  increased  demand  gave  a  power- 
ful impetus  to  cotton  and  woolen  manufacture. 
And  although  with  the  advent  of  peace  the  Eng- 
lish commodity  regained  its  former  advantage,  in- 
dustry continued  to  develop  in  New  England,  en- 
tailing antagonisms  of  various  s6rts  between  its 
interests  and  the  interests  of  the  slaveholders,  the 
planters  of  the  South.  The  idea  of  the  abolition 
of  slavery  arose  in  New  England. 

In  the  South,  also,  a  change  in  economic  inter- 
ests was  accomplished  by  a  change  in  the  opinions 
of  men.  In  the  Border  slave  states — in  Virginia, 
for  instance — there  arose  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  ideas  and  movements  aiming 
at  the  mitigation  or  abolition  of  slavery.  Rapac- 
ious tillage  and  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil  incident 
thereto,  peculiar  to  slave  labor,  led  to  a  condition 


16  LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND   SLAVERY 

of  the  tobacco  plantations  which  made  their  fur- 
ther cultivation  unprofitable.  People  began  to 
feel  the  possession  of  slaves  as  a  burden,  and  in 
consequence  became  philanthropically  inclined. 
We  see  this  demonstrated  by  the  fact,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  South,  and  especially  Virginia, 
sent  delegates  to  the  annual  Abolitionist  conven- 
tions in  Philadelphia,  which  had  their  inception  in 
New  England.  But  this  practice  ceased  when 
slavery  suddenly  again  became  profitable.  Phil- 
anthropy went  to  the  devil  when  money  poured 
into  the  cash-box. 

Meanwhile  in  1803,  the  United  States  had  pur- 
chased from  France  the  extensive  territory  which 
was  at  that  time  known  as  Louisiana.  The  sugar 
and  rice  fields  of  the  new  territory  created  a  mar- 
ket for  Negro  slaves,  the  demands  of  which  could 
hardly  be  satisfied.  The  planters  of  the  Border 
slave  States,  to  whom  the  cultivation  of  tobacco 
had  become  unprofitable  and  who  for  climatic  rea- 
sons could  not  think  of  raising  cotton,  now  threw 
themselves  into  the  production  of  Negro  slaves, 
into  the  "manufacture"  of  Negroes.  They  bred 
Negroes,  as  cattle  are  bred,  and  sold  them  to  the 
planters  of  the  cotton  and  sugar  States.  With 
the  increased  interest  in  Negro  slavery  in  Vir- 
ginia philanthropy  disappeared,  and  nothing 
further  was  heard  there  in  regard  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery.  But  voices  began  to  be  raised  in  favor 
of  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade.  New  Eng- 


HISTORICAL   REVIEW  17 

land  ships  carrying  slaves  from  the  coast  of 
Africa  to  America  offered  a  sharp  competition  to 
the  Virginia  planters  who  bred  Negroes  on  Amer- 
ican soil.  As  early  as  1808  the  slave  trade  was 
legally  prohibited.  Notwithstanding  this  prohibi- 
tion the  ship  owners  of  the  North,  and  especially 
of  New  York,  continued  to  carry  on  the  trade 
briskly,  and  it  was  still  active  as  late  as  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixties. 

These  and  other  antagonistic  interests  between 
the  ruling  classes  of  American  society,  between 
the  manufacturers  of  the  North  and  the  planters 
of  the  South,  gave  rise  to  the  later  movement  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  a  movement  which  first 
manifested  itself  in  the  formation  of  Abolitionist 
societies.  These  societies  originated  in  the  be- 
ginning  of  the  thirties  in  the  large  cities  of  the 
North,  especially  in  Boston,  after  an  earlier  move- 
ment by  the  same  name  and  with  the  same  ends 
had  completely  ceased  to  exist.  While  the  ear- 
lier Abolitionists  had  fought  slavery  with  the 
Bible  in  their  hands,  the  new  movement  forged 
additional  weapons  for  itself  out  of  political 
economy  and  statistics,  and  from  economic  con- 
siderations demonstrated  the  necessity  for  the 
abolition  of  slave  labor.  These  Abolitionists  were 
untiring  in  demanding  immediate  abolition.  Al- 
though they  were  very  weak  in  the  beginning,  they 
nevertheless  accomplished  wonders  by  the  agita- 
tion among  the  masses  coincident  with  the  in- 


18     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

creasing   antagonism   of    interests   between    the 
North  and  the  South. 

2.    ECONOMIC  CONTRAST. 

Economic  antagonism  between  the  North  and 
the  South  had  for  a  long  time  found  political  ex- 
pression in  tariff  legislation.  The  capitalists  of 
the  North,  who  paid  their  free  laborers  wages, 
were  interested  in  legislation  which  depressed 
wages  and  raised  the  price  of  commodities.  The 
Southern  slaveholders,  on  the  other  hand,  sought 
to  purchase  cheaply  the  supplies  which  they  re- 
quired for  the  support  of  their  numerous  slaves 
and  for  the  operation  of  their  plantations,  and 
they  consequently  advocated  such  legislation  as 
promised  to  depress  the  prices  of  these  supplies 
to  the  lowest  possible  level.  We  thus  observe  in 
the  North  tendencies  aiming  at  a  protective  tariff. 
Its  infant  industries  could  be  protected  against 
foreign  competition  only  by  a  high  tariff.  The 
protective  system  which  "manufactures"  manu- 
facturers by  creating  high  prices  for  manu- 
factured goods,  was  for  this  very  reason  abhorred 
by  the  South.  We  consequently  find  there  the 
most  ardent  champions  of  free  trade. 

Slavery  precluded  all  industrial  development, 
as  well  as  all  agriculture  on  a  scientific  and  econ- 
omical basis,  and  was  restricted  exclusively  to  the 
cultivation  of  staple  articles.  The  prime  staple 
was  cotton,  the  cultivation  of  which  admitted  of 


ECONOMIC    CONTRAST  19 

the  application  of  human  labor  power  in  its  most 
primitive  form  and  by  means  of  the  most  primi- 
tive tools.  The  cotton  planter  knew  but  one  in- 
terest— namely,  to  sell  his  cotton  at  high  prices 
and  to  buy  his  supplies  at  the  lowest  possible 
prices. 

Slave  labor  became  profitable  only  when  the 
planter  gave  his  undivided  attention  to  cotton. 
The  less  grain  and  food  products  he  produced,  the 
larger  was  his  harvest  of  cotton,  the  greater  his 
profit.  The  cheaper  he  purchased  his  provisions, 
the  cheaper  could  he  produce  his  cotton,  and  the 
larger  was  his  profit.  If  he  had  undertaken  to 
raise  his  own  grain,  he  would  hardly  have  been  in 
a  position  to  produce  enough  cotton  for  export. 
The  Northern  and  Western  farmer  consequently 
worked  for  the  South,  by  sending  the  surplus  of 
his  grain  there.  But  he  demanded  good  prices 
for  his  products,  while  the  planter  was  willing  to 
pay  but  little,  and  so  the  former  was  brought  into 
further  antagonism  with  the  South. 

The  fact  of  the  predominance  of  protective- 
tariff  sentiments  in  the  North  and  of  free-trade 
sentiments  in  the  South  did  not  preclude  opposi- 
tion to  these  tendencies  on  the  part  of  certain 
groups  of  interests  within  those  sections.  Thus, 
in  the  North,  the  commercial  element  of  the  large 
cities,  especially  of  New  York,  as  well  as  the  ship- 
owners, were  pronounced  free  traders  and  in  turn 


0 


20  LINCOLN,   LABOR  AND   SLAVERY 

supporters  of  slavery,  while  the  sugar  planters  of 
the  South  advocated  a  high  tariff. 

The  conflict  between  the  two  tendencies  in  tariff 
legislation  dates  back  to  the  year  1828.  In  that 
year  the  manufacturers  favoring  a  protective 
tariff  succeeded  for  the  first  time  in  passing  a 
tariff  law  which  was  wholly  dictated  by  a  regard 
for  the  development  of  industrial  enterprise.  Be- 
fore that  tariffs  had  been  levied  mainly  for 
revenue,  with  a  regard  to  meeting  the  expenses 
of  government.  The  first  attempt  to  inaugurate 
a  protective  policy  created  a  storm  of  dissent  in 
the  South  and  led  to  a  fierce  struggle  against  it. 
Beginning  with  1833  one  duty  after  another  was 
abolished,  until  in  1857,  after  many  changes  in 
tariff  legislation,  the  Democrats  in  Congress  suc- 
ceeded in  passing  a  tariff  schedule  with  lower 
duties  than  the  Union  had  known  since  1812. 

The  South  was  connected  with  England  by  a 
bond  of  common  interest.  The  rapidly  develop- 
ing textile  industries  of  Great  Britain  were  in 
great  need  of  the  raw  cotton  of  the  South,  which 
possessed  a  monopoly  in  its  production.  As  re- 
turn freight  the  cotton  ships  brought  back  Eng- 
land's industrial  products,  which  became  cheaper 
and  cheaper,  and  which  came  into  the  country 
unchecked  by  the  prevailing  tariff.  England's 
competition  became  more  and  more  oppressive  to 
Northern  industry.  The  antagonism  between  the 
capital  which  employed  free  labor  in  the  North 


*Jjr 

ECONOMIC    CONTRAST  21 

and  the  capital  which  employed  slave  labor  in  the 
South  became  more  and  more  pronounced,  and  a 
serious  clash  seemed  inevitable. 

We  must  mention  one  more  fact  which  intensi- 
fied the  antagonism  between  the  farmers  of  the 
North  and  West  and  the  planters  of  the  South. 
Slave  labor  and  plantation  farming  led  to  a  rapid 
deterioration  and  exhaustion  of  the  soil.  The 
slaveholders  were  therefore  in  constant  need  of 
new  territory  for  exploitation  and  devastation. 
Hence  the  endeavors  of  the  South  to  acquire  new  * 
territory  and  to  make  slavery  there  a  legal  insti- 
tution. The  economic  life,  and  consequently  the' 
political  predominance  of  the  South  in  the  Union, 
lay  in  the  extension  of  cotton  culture.  /If  the 
South  lost  the  power  of  expansion,  it  lost  the  pos- 
sibility of  existence.  /  This  fact  explains  the  virul- 
ence of  the  slaveholders  whenever  the  question  of 
the  extension  of  slave  territory  came  up  for  de- 
bate. Therefore  the  interminable  intrigues  which 
in  the  thirties  and  forties  led  first  to  the  inde- 
pendence and  then  to  the  annexation  of  Texas 
Therefore  the  Mexican  War  and  the  extension  of 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  to  include  Cali- 
fornia, Utah  and  New  Mexico.  Therefore  also 
the  various  expeditions  to  Cuba  in  order  to  ac- 
quire this  island  for  the  South.  Therefore  even 
the  invasion  of  Central  America,  of  which  it  was 
frankly  said  that  the  aim  of  its  promoters  was 
the  restoration  of  slavery,  which  had  been  abol- 


22  LINCOLN,   LABOR   AND   SLAVERY 

ished  there.  Therefore  especially  also  the  attempt 
to  make  of  slavery  a  legal  institution  in  all  those 
States  of  the  Union  which  were  suitable  for  the 
production  of  cotton  or  of  slaves. 

But  these  attempts  aiming  at  the  seizure  of  the 
still  extant  virgin  soil  in  behalf  of  slave  labor 
were  at  war  with  the  interests  of  the  farmer  of 
the  North  and  the  West.  The  farmer,  also,  was 
greatly  interested  in  new  territory.  Often  enough 
he  left  his  old  homestead  in  search  of  new  virgin 
soil.  But  there  was  no  place  for  the  labor  of  the 
free  farmer  where  slave  labor  prevailed,  and  the 
competitive  struggles  between  him  and  the 
planter,  especially  in  the  border  territory  between 
the  free  and  slave  states,  formed  an  additional 
reason  for  him  to  take  a  stand  against  slavery. 
It  was  in  the  main  pre-eminently  the  farmer  ele- 
ment, too,  which  took  the  field  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  and  the  subjugation  of  the  in- 
surgent South. 

3.    POLITICAL  STRUGGLE. 

In  Congress  the  Southerners  spent  all  their 
energy  in  efforts  to  establish  their  dominion.  In 
August,  1850,  the  Fugitive  Law  was  passed, 
which  empowered  every  slave  holder  to  pursue 
and  seize  fugitive  slaves  throughout  the  whole 
Union,  including  the  free  states,  where  slavery 
did  not  exist.  By  this  law  the  very  sovereignty 
of  the  Northern  States  was  abolished.  Another 


POLITICAL   STRUGGLE  23 

measure  of  the  Compromise  of  1850  permitted 
the  first  extension  of  slavery  over  new  territory 
(New  Mexico  and  Utah).  This  was  followed  by 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  (1854)  which  de- 
prived Congress  of  the  power  of  prohibiting  slav- 
ery anywhere,  but  left  the  decision  to  the  indi- 
vidual States  and  practically  opened  the  entire 
West  to  the  introduction  of  slavery.  Then  came 
the  bloody  encounters  between  the  free-State 
people  and  the  adherents  of  slavery  in  Kansas. 
The  Dred  Scott  decision  of  1857  followed.  It 
was  these  questions  almost  exclusively  which 
dominated  the  internal  policy  of  the  country  and 
determined  the  formation  of  new  parties. 

The  Republican  party  was  formed  in  1854  by 
the  progressive  elements  of  the  Democratic  and 
the  old  Whig  parties  and  the  Free  Soilers.  It  was 
opposed  to  slavery,  but  its  opposition  was  directed 
far  more  against  the  extension  of  slavery  than 
against  the  institution  itself.  Its  slogan  was  not 
originally  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  rather: 
No  more  Slave  States.  As  late  as  1856  a  radical 
paper  hostile  to  slavery  complained  of  the  Re- 
publicans :  "Everywhere  bargains,  compromises, 
concessions  which  make  it  almost  impossible  for 
an  honest  man  to  participate  in  the  struggle!" 

How  little  the  Republican  party  originally 
thought  of  demanding  complete  abolition  is  made 
plain  by  a  glance  at  the  platform  which  was 
adopted  by  its  first  general  convention  at  Phila- 


24  LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND   SLAVERY 

delphia,  in  1856.  The  planks  which  in  this  plat- 
form  referred  to  slavery  were :  First,  opposition 
to  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  the  Territories, 
so  that  neither  Congress,  nor  the  Territorial  Leg- 
islature, nor  any  company  or  individual  should 
have  the  right  under  the  prevailing  constitution 
to  legalize  slavery  there;  and,  further,  an  asser- 
tion of  the  constitutional  power  and  obligation  of 
Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  and  polygamy  in  the 
Territories.  Absolutely  nothing  was  said  in  be- 
half of  the  abolition  of  slavery  itself  in  the  slave 
States. 

Even  in  1860,  when  a  violent  conflict  already 
seemed  inevitable;  when  the  proceedings  in  Con- 
gress had  carried  the  political  antagonisms  to  an 
acute  stage;  when  John  Brown's  attempted  in- 
surrection and  his  death  on  the  gallows  had  set 
the  population  in  both  camps  aflame  with  excite- 
ment— even  then  the  Republicans  did  not  demand 
abolition.  In  their  convention  of  that  year  at 
Chicago,  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  nomi- 
nated for  the  Presidency,  a  new  platform  was 
adopted,  containing,  among  others,  these  planks 
in  regard  to  slavery : 

"That  the  new  dogma,  that  the  Constitution, 
of  its  own  force,  carries  slavery  into  any  or  all 
of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  is  a  dan- 
gerous political  heresy,  at  variance  with  the  ex- 
plicit provisions  of  that  instrument  itself,  with 
contemporaneous  exposition,  and  with  legislative 


POLITICAL   STRUGGLE  25 

and  judicial  precedent;  is  revolutionary  in  its  ten- 
dency and  subversive  of  the  peace  and  harmony 
of  the  country. 

"That  the  normal  condition  of  all  the  territory 
of  the  United  States  is  that  of  freedom;  that  as 
our  republican  fathers,  when  they  had  abolished 
slavery  in  all  our  national  territory,  ordained  that 
'no  person  should  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or 
property  without  due  process  of  law/  it  becomes 
our  duty,  by  legislation,  whenever  such  legisla- 
tion is  necessary,  to  maintain  this  provision  of  the 
Constitution  against  all  attempts  to  violate  it; 
and  we  deny  the  authority  of  Congress,  of  a  Ter- 
ritorial Legislature,  or  of  any  individuals,  to  give 
legal  existence  to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of  the 
United  States. 

"That  we  brand  the  recent 


J\frkan  slave  trgjs,  under  the  cover  of  our  na- 
tional flag,  aided  by  perversions  of  judicial  power, 
as  a  crime  against  humanity  and  a  burning  shame 
to  our  country  and  age,  and  we  call  upon  Con- 
gress to  take  prompt  and  efficient  measures  for 
the  total  and  final  suppression  of  that  execrable 
traffic." 

Thus  we  see  that  on  the  very  eve  of  the  out- 
break of  hostilities  between  the  North  ani  the 
South  the  Republicans  were  silent  in  regard  to 
abolition.  They  contented  themselves  with  pro- 
testing against  the  extension  of  the  institution 
over  Federal  territory  and  with  condemning  the 


26     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

slave  trade,  which  had  been  reopened.  They  still 
had  no  objections  to  urge  against  slavery  itself, 
or  at  least  they  did  not  consider  it  expedient  to 
place  the  demand  for  abolition  in  the  foreground. 

In  the  Fall  of  1860,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
elected  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States. 
The  South  unfurled  the  flag  of  rebellion.  Futile 
attempts  to  effect  a  compromise  were  still  made 
in  Congress,  and  the  Republicans,  in  order  to  save 
the  union,  showed  a  willingness  to  concede  much 
of  what  they  had  previously  stood  for.  But  with 
the  outbreak  of  hostilities  the  attitude  of  the  Re- 
publican leaders  gradually  became  more  radical, 
though  the  necessity  of  conciliating  a  large  part 
of  the  population  in  the  Border  States  compelled 
the  utmost  caution.  No  one  better  understood  the 
necessity  of  this  caution  than  Lincoln;  and  from 
time  to  time  he  had  to  withstand  bursts  of  angry 
impatience  from  sections  of  the  Northern  people 
who  insisted  upon  a  more  radical  attitude. 

Lincoln's  position  in  regard  to  secession  and 
slavery  during  the  early  part  of  the  war,  and  the 
position  of  the  radicals  and  the  Abolitionists  in 
regard  to  Lincoln  and  the  Republican  Adminis- 
tration is  brought  out  most  clearly  in  a  contro- 
versy on  the  subject  between  Lincoln  and  Horace 
Greeley,  the  Abolitionist  editor  of  the  New  York 
Tribune.  In  August,  1862,  Greeley  published  in 
the  New  York  Tribune  an  open  letter  addressed 
to  Lincoln.  His  appeal  to  the  President  was  en- 


POLITICAL   STRUGGLE  27 

titled  "The  Prayer  of  Twenty  Millions,"  and  in 
the  course  of  it  he  requested  Lincoln  to  write  to 
the  United  States  Ministers  in  Europe  and  ask 
them  "to  tell  you  [Lincoln]  candidly,  whether  the 
seeming  subserviency  of  your  policy  to  the  slave- 
holding,  slavery-upholding  interest,  is  not  the 
perplexity,  the  despair  of  statesmen  and  of  par- 
ties, and  be  admonished  by  the  general  answer !" 
Lincoln  replied  to  this  public  appeal  of  Horace 
Greeley  as  follows : 

"Executive  Mansion,  Washington. 

"August  22,  1862. 
"Hon.  Horace  Greeley: 

"Dear  Sir :  I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  19th, 
addressed  to  myself  through  the  New  York 
Tribune.  If  there  be  in  it  statements  or  assump- 
tions of  fact  which  I  may  know  to  be  erroneous, 
I  do  not  now  and  here  controvert  them.  If  there 
be  in  it  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe  to 
be  falsely  drawn,  I  do  not  now  and  here  argue 
against  them.  If  there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  im- 
patient and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it  in  defer- 
ence to  an  old  friend,  whose  heart  I  have  always 
supposed  to  be  right. 

"As  to  the  policy  I  'seem  to  be  pursuing,'  as 
you  say,  I  have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in 
doubt. 

"I  would  save  the  Union.    I  would  save  it  the 
shortest  way  under  the  Constitution.    The  sooner 


28  LINCOLN,   LABOR   AND    SLAVERY 

the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the  nearer 
the  Union  will  be  'the  Union  as  it  was.'  If  there 
be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless 
they  could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do 
not  agree  with  them.  If  there  be  those  who 
would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at 
the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree 
with  them.  My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle 
is  to  save  the  Union,  and  is  not  either  to  save  or 
destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  with- 
out freeing  any  slaves,  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I 
could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do 
it;  and  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving 
others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I  do 
about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I 
believe  it  helps  to  save  this  Union;  and  what  I 
forbear  doing,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  believe 
it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I  shall  do  less 
whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing  hurts 
the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall 
believe  doing  more  will  help  the  cause.  I  shall 
try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors; 
and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall 
appear  to  be  true  views.  I  have  here  stated  my 
purpose  according  to  my  views  of  official  duty, 
and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft  expressed 
personal  wish  that  all  men,  everywhere,  could 
he  fiee. 

"Yours, 

"A.  Lincoln." 


POLITICAL   STRUGGLE  29 

• 

Horace  Greeley  published  a  reply,  in  which  he 
raised  the  question  whether  Lincoln  intended  to 
save  the  Union  "by  recognizing,  obeying,  and  en- 
forcing the  laws,  or  by  ignoring,  disregarding  and 
in  fact  defying  them." 

Greeley' s  answer  to  this  question  was  as  fol- 
lows: 

"I  stand  upon  the  law  of  the  land.  The  humb- 
lest has  a  clear  right  to  invoke  its  protection  and 
support  against  even  the  highest.  That  law — -in 
strict  accordance  with  the  law  of  nations,  of  Na- 
ture and  of  God — declares  that  every  traitor  now 
engaged  in  the  infernal  work  of  destroying  our 
country  has  forfeited  thereby  all  claims  or  color 
of  right  lawfully  to  hold  human  beings  in  slavery. 
I  ask  of  you  a  clear  and  public  recognition  that 
this  law  is  to  be  obeyed  wherever  the  national 
authority  is  respected.  I  cite  to  you  instances 
wherein  men  fleeing  from  bondage  to  traitors,  to 
the  protection  of  our  flag,  have  been  assaulted, 
wounded,  and  murdered  by  soldiers  of  the  Union, 
unpunished  and  unrebuked  by  your  General  Com- 
manding,— to  prove  that  it  is  your  duty  to  take 
action  in  the  premises, — action  that  will  cause 
the  law  to  be  proclaimed  and  obeyed  wherever 
your  authority  or  that  of  the  Union  is  recognized 
as  paramount.  The  Rebellion  is  strengthened, 
the  national  cause  is  imperilled,  by  every  hour's 
delay  to  strike  treason  this  staggering  blow. 

"When  Fremont  proclaimed   freedom  to  the 


30     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

slaves  of  rebels,  you  constrained  him  to  modify 
his  proclamation  into  rigid  accordance  with  the 
terms  of  the  existing  law.  It  was  your  clear 
right  to  do  so.  I  now  ask  of  you  conformity  to 
the  principle  so  sternly  enforced  upon  him.  I 
ask  you  to  instruct  your  generals  and  com- 
modores, that  no  loyal  person — certainly  none 
willing  to  render  service  to  the  national  cause — 
is  henceforth  to  be  regarded  as  the  slave  of  any 
traitor.  While  no  rightful  government  was  ever 
before  assailed  by  so  wanton  and  wicked  a  rebel- 
lion as  that  of  the  slaveholders  against  our  nation- 
al life,  I  am  sure  none  ever  before  hesitated  at  so 
simple  and  primary  an  act  of  self-defence,  as  to 
relieve  those  who  would  serve  and  save  it  from 
chattel  servitude  to  those  who  are  wading  through 
seas  of  blood  to  subvert  and  destroy  it.  Future 
generations  will  with  difficulty  realize  that  there 
could  have  been  hesitation  on  this  point.  Sixty 
years  of  general  and  boundless  subserviency  to 
the  slave  power  do  not  adequately  explain  it. 

"Mr.  President,  I  beseech  you  to  open  your 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  devotees  of  slavery  every- 
where— just  as  much  in  Maryland  as  in  Missis- 
sippi, in  Washington  as  in  Richmond — are  to- 
day your  enemies,  and  the  implacable  foes  of 
every  effort  to  re-establish  the  national  authority 
by  the  discomfiture  of  its  assailants.  Their  Presi- 
dent is  not  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  Jefferson  Davis. 
You  may  draft  them  to  serve  in  the  war;  but  they 


POLITICAL   STRUGGLE  31 

will  only  fight  under  the  Rebel  flag.  There  is  not 
in  New  York  to-day  a  man  who  really  believes  in 
slavery,  loves  it,  and  desires  its  perpetuation,  who 
heartily  desires  the  crushing  out  of  the  Rebellion. 
He  would  much  rather  save  the  Republic  by 
buying  up  and  pensioning  off  its  assailants.  His 
'Union  as  it  was'  is  a  Union  of  which  you  were 
not  President,  and  no  one  who  truly  wished  free- 
dom to  all,  ever  could  be. 

"If  these  are  truths,  Mr.  President,  they  are 
surely  of  the  gravest  importance.  You  cannot 
safely  approach  the  great  and  good  end  you  so 
intently  meditate  by  shutting  your  eyes  to  them. 
Your  deadly  foe  is  not  blinded  by  any  mist  in 
which  your  eyes  may  be  developed.  He  walks 
straight  to  his  goal,  knowing  well  his  weak  point, 
and  most  unwillingly  betraying  his  fear  that  you 
too  may  see  and  take  advantage  of  it.  God  grant 
that  apprehension  may  prove  prophetic ! 

"That  you  may  reasonably  perceive  these  vital 
truths  as  they  will  shine  forth  on  the  pages  of 
history, — that  they  may  be  read  by  our  children 
irradiated  by  the  glory  of  our  national  salvation, 
not  rendered  lurid  by  the  blood-red  glow  of  na- 
tional conflagration  and  ruin — that  you  may 
promptly  and  practically  realize  that  slavery  is  to 
be  vanquished  only  by  liberty, — is  the  fervent  and 
anxious  prayer  of 

"Yours  truly, 

"Horace  Greeley." 


32  LINCOLN,   LABOR   AND   SLAVERY 

The  attitude  of  the  Administration  and  of  Con- 
gress toward  slavery,  though  cautious,  was  stead- 
ily progressive.  In  August,  1861,  Congress 
passed  a  Confiscation  act,  freeing  slaves  who 
were  directly  employed  in  aiding  the  Confederate 
cause.  Gen.  John  C.  Fremont,  in  command  in 
Missouri,  soon  after  issued  a  proclamation  ex- 
ceeding the  terms  Of  this  act  in  that  it  freed  the 
slaves  of  all  persons  in  rebellion  against  the 
Government.  Lincoln  immediately  disallowed 
the  proclamation  and  soon  after  (November  2d) 
removed  Fremont.  Gen.  B.  F.  Butler,  however, 
was  not  interfered  with  for  treating  the  slaves 
in  the  Fort  Monroe  neighborhood  as  "contraband 
of  war."  In  March,  1862,  Lincoln  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  Congress  advocating  the  gradual  aboli- 
tion of  slavery,  with  compensation,  but  the  meas- 
ure failed.  In  the  following  month  Congress 
abolished  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  an  average  compensation  of  $200  per  slave 
was  paid.  In  June  Congress  abolished  slavery  in 
the  Territories,  granting  no  compensation;  and 
in  July  the  Coruscation  act  was  extended  and 
strengthened.  On  July  22d  Lincoln  read  the  first 
draft  of  his  Emancipation  Proclamation  to  his 
cabinet,  but  decided  to  withhold  it  until  a  de- 
cisive victory  had  been  gained.  Shortly  after- 
ward Gen.  David  Hunter,  in  command  in  South 
Carolina,  issued  a  proclamation  as  sweeping  as 
the  one  issued  a  year  before  by  Gen.  Fremont. 


POLITICAL   STRUGGLE  33 

This,  also,  was  disallowed  by  Lincoln,  though 
within  a  few  weeks  (September  22d)  he  issued 
his  own  proclamation.  On  January  1,  1863,  this 
proclamation  went  into  effect.  On  February  1, 
1865,  by  a  two-thirds  majority,  Congress  passed 
the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  and  on  December 
18th  it  was  officially  proclaimed  as  having  been 
ratified  by  a  sufficient  number  of  States. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  WORKINGMEN  AND  CHATTEL  SLAVERY. 

1.     THE  INDUSTRIAL  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH 
AND  SLAVERY. 

The  whole  course  of  development  sketched  in 
the  foregoing  chapter — the  inception  and  rise  of 
the  movement  in  behalf  of  the  emancipation  of 
the  Negro  slaves,  the  economic  and  political  an- 
tagonisms and  struggles  engendered  by  slavery, 
the  formation  of  new  political  parties,  and  fin- 
ally the  attempt  to  disrupt  the  Union — this  whole 
course  of  development  was  accompanied  by,  and 
stood  in  the  most  intimate  relation  with,  another 
economic  phenomenon — namely,  the  rise  of  capi- 
talist industry  in  the  North  and  the  concomitant 
growth  of  an  industrial  working  class  with  sep- 
arate class  interests  and  separate  class  feelings, 
developing  into  perfect  class  consciousness  with 
the  advent  of  greater  intelligence. 

Now,  what  position  did  these  industrial  work- 
ers of  the  North  take  regarding  chattel  slavery? 
It  was  in  the  nature  of  things  that  slavery  and 
free  labor  could  not  peaceably  continue  to  exist 
side  by  side.  The  intelligence  and  the  class  con- 


THE   WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          35 

sciousness  of  the  free  workingmen  may  not  have 
been  sufficiently  developed  than  to  apprehend  the 
economic  reasons  which  preclude  the  co-existence 
of  slave  labor  and  free  labor,  and  the  working- 
men  may  especially  not  have  been  able  to  see  that 
their  own  development  as  a  class  was  imperiled 
by  slavery,  but  their  class  feeling  was  certainly 
far  enough  advanced  to  dispose  them  in  most 
cases  against  the  existence  of  slavery.  This  atti- 
tude, however,  was  originally  less  the  result  of 
a  clear  apprehension  than  of  the  emanation  of  a 
certain  feeling,  which  again  and  again,  as  we 
shall  see,  was  traversed  by  their  own  class  inter- 
est, and  which  gave  to  the  position  of  the  work- 
ingmen in  regard  to  Negro  slavery  a  strangely 
contradictory  aspect. 

Previous  to  the  Civil  War  in  America  but  few 
countries  knew  anything  about  the  labor  move- 
ment and  labor  organization.  Only  in  England 
and  in  the  United  States  was  there  a  working 
class  with  separate  class  interests  sufficiently  de- 
veloped to  admit  of  its  organization  and  mobil- 
ization as  an  independent  class. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
trade  unions  had  begun  to  appear  in  England. 
In  the  thirties  and  forties  the  British  proletariat 
had  created  for  itself  a  vigorous  political  labor 
organization  in  the  Chartist  movement.  In  Ger- 
many, France  and  the  other  European  countries 
the  workingmen  had  not  got  beyond  the  first  at- 


36     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

tempts  at  organization  and  were  as  yet  without 
any  idea  of  an  independent  labor  movement.  It 
was  not  to  be  expected  therefore  that  the  Con- 
tinental workingman  would  take  an  independent 
position  in  regard  to  Negro  slavery. 

In  the  United  States  the  first  trade  organiza- 
tions of  workingmen  had  made  their  appearance 
simultaneously  with  the  formation  of  trade 
unions  in  England.  As  early  as  the  latter  part 
of  the  twenties  and  the  beginning  of  the  thirties 
we  note  also  the  formation  of  independent  politi- 
cal labor  organizations,  but  all  of  short  duration. 
The  development  of  the  trade-union  movement 
was  again  and  again  interrupted  by  the  economic 
crises  of  the  ante-bellum  period,  especially  those 
of  1837  and  1857,  and  the  existing  organizations 
were  destroyed.  The  political  labor  parties  also 
soon  disappeared :  wrecked  partly  by  the  incom- 
plete development  of  conditions  and  partly  by  the 
intrigues  of  professional  politicians  and  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  labor  leaders.  Nevertheless  new 
organizations  and  new  movements  started  into 
life  again.  The  more  industry  developed,  the 
more  numerous  became  the  attempts  of  working- 
men  to  found  independent  organizations. 

Corresponding  with  the  development  of  indus- 
try, the  American  labor  movement  of  that  period 
was  restricted  to  the  Northern  States,  especially 
to  the  Eastern  portion.  New  England,  New 
York,  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore  were  the  prin- 


THE   WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          37 

cipal  seats  of  activity.  In  the  South  single  asso- 
ciations of  mechanics,  especially  printers,  ship- 
wrights, and  iron  moulders,  were  indeed  formed 
in  the  fifties,  but  in  general  they  were  of  little 
account.  The  entire  West  was  devoted  to  agri- 
culture and  consequently  offered  but  little  soil  for 
the  growth  of  an  industrial  labor  movement. 

In  the  Eastern  portion  of  the  country,  espe- 
cially in  New  York,  the  German  immigrant  work- 
ingmen  played  a  part.  Many  trades  were  almost 
exclusively  in  the  hands  of  skilled  German  ar-r 
tisans.  They  organized  independent  unions  for 
the  promotion  of  their  own  interests,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  forties  there  arose  a  German  labor 
movement  on  American  soil,  which  frequently 
exerted  great  influence.  In  determining  the  po- 
sition of  the  labor  movement  in  regard  to  Negro 
slavery  only  England  and  the  United  States  are 
consequently  to  be  considered,  and  in  the  latter 
country  the  attitude  of  the  immigrant  German 
workingmen  must  be  taken  into  account  along 
with  that  of  the  native  organizations. 

Through  the  agitation  of  the  Abolitionists, 
which  was  vigorously  supported  by  the  social  re- 
formers of  the  Fourier  and  Owen  schools  and  by 
the  men  and  women  interested  in  Brook  Farm, 
who  exercised  a  great  influence  upon  the  work- 
ingmen, the  industrial  laborers  and  artisans  oi 
New  England  became  early  enlightened  with  re- 
gard to  slavery,  and  they  took  position  accord- 


38     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

ingly.  /  Their  attitude  on  this  matter  furnishes 
another  proof  that  the  salvation  of  the  world  does 
not  proceed  from  the  palaces,  but  comes  from  the 
hovels;  and  that  it  is  the  despised  and  lower  strata 
of  society  in  which  all  reformatory  movements, 
which  together  constitute  the  progress  of  man* 
kind,  strike  root  and  have  their  soil.  / 

The  strong  hold  which  the  teachings  of  the 
Abolitionists  gained  among  the  mass  of  the  work- 
ingmen  of  New  England,  and  the  coldness  with 
which  these  teachings  were  received  by  the  upper 
ten  of  society,  are  facts  attested  by  an  eye-witness 
who  himself  sprang  from  the  latter  class. 
Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  a  native  of  New 
England,  writes  of  the  early  thirties  of  the  last 
century,  after  William  Lloyd  Garrison  had 
launched  his  Abolitionist  agitation  and  founded 
the  Liberator  in  Boston : 

"The  an,ti-slavery  movement  was  not  strong- 
est in  the  more  educated  classes,  but  was  pre- 
dominantly a  people's  movement,  based  on  the 
simplest  human  instincts  and  far  stronger  for  a 
time  in  the  factories  and  shoe-shops  than  in  the 

And  further: 

"All  of  us  were  familiar  with  the  vain  efforts 
of  Garrison  to  enlist  the  clergy  in  the  anti-slavery 
cause,  and  Stephen  Foster,  one  of  the  stanchest 
of  the  early  Abolitionists,  habitually  spoke  of 
them  as  the  'Brotherhood  of  Thieves.'  Lawyers 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    39 

and  doctors,  too,  fared  hard  with  those  enthusi- 
asts, and  merchants  not  much  better."* 

Thus  we  see  it  was  the  working  class,  and  not 
the  property  owners  of  New  England,  that  list- 
ened to  the  Abolitionists.  And  like  the  unorgan- 
ized mass  of  the  workingmen  of  the  North,  so 
also  the  first  organized  workingmen  showed  an 
understanding  of  the  question  of  Negro  slavery 
and  sympathized  with  the  Abolitionists  in  their 
efforts  to  abolish  the  institution.  The  platform 
of  one  of  the  first  political  labor  parties  of  New 
York  contained  a  plank  demanding  the  abolition 
of  chattel  slavery;  and  as  an  expression  of  their 
own  class  interest,  they  demanded  at  the  same 
time  the  abolition  of  wage  slavery,  a  term  which 
had  far  greater  currency  in  the  American  labor 
movement  at  that  period  than  subsequently. 

The  question  of  the  abolition  of  wage  slavery, 
as  well  as  the  demands  of  the  labor  movement  in 
general,  met  with  far  less  understanding  among 
the  Abolitionists  than  the  question  of  the  aboli- 
tion of  chattel  slavery  among  the  workingmen. 
The  Abolitionists  denied  the  very  existence  of 
"white  slavery.''  They  opposed  the  spokesmen 
of  the  workingmen  who  in  their  speeches  and 
articles  used  the  term  "white  slavery,"  and  flatly 
denied  that  wage  workers  were  slaves.  The 
Abolitionists,  indeed,  evinced  so  little  understand- 

*  Thomas    Wentworth    Higginson :        Cheerful    Yester- 
days.    1898.     pp.   115-117. 


40     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

i 

ing  of  the  rising  movement  of  the  workingmeu 
that  they  denied  them  the  right  of  independent 
organization,  of  making  separate  demands  as  a 
class,  and  of  securing  their  special  interests. 

On  January  1,  1831,  there  appeared  in  Boston 
the  first  number  of  the  Liberator,  the  organ  of 
the  Abolitionists,  which  William  Lloyd  Garri- 
son published  for  thirty  years  in  the  interest  of 
the  emancipation  of  the  Negro  slaves.  The  same 
time  saw  the  birth  of  a  movement  for  the  purpose 
of  organizing  the  workingmen  of  New  England 
into  an  independent  political  labor  party.  This 
labor  party  was  founded  in  a  convention  held  at 
Boston  in  February,  1831,  under  the  name  "New 
England  Association  of  Farmers,  Mechanics  and 
other  Workingmen."  In  the  first  issue  of  the 
Liberator  William  Lloyd  Garrison  opposed  the 
agitation  in  behalf  of  this  independent  labor  party 
in  the  following  words : 

"'An  attempt  has  been  made — it  is  still  mak- 
ing— we  regret  to  say,  with  considerable  success 
— to  inflame  the  minds  of  our  working  classes 
against  the  more  opulent,  and  to  persuade  men 
that  they  are  contemned  and  oppressed  by  a 
wealthy  aristocracy.  That  public  grievances  ex- 
ist, is  unquestionably  true;  but  they  are  not  con- 
fined to  any  one  class  of  society.  Every  profes- 
sion is  interested  in  their  removal — the  rich  as 
well  as  the  poor.  It  is  in  the  highest  degree  crim- 
inal, therefore,  to  exasperate  our  mechanics  to 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    41 

deeds  of  violence  or  to  array  them  under  a  party 
banner;  for  it  is  not  true,  that,  at  any  time,  the)' 
have  been  the  objects  of  reproach.  Labor  is  not 
dishonorable.  The  industrious  artisan,  in  a  gov- 
ernment like  ours,  will  always  be  held  in  better 
estimation  than  the  wealthy  idler. 

"Our  limits  will  not  allow  us  to  enlarge  on  this 
subject;  we  may  return  to  it  another  time.  We 
are  the  friends  of  reform;  but  this  is  not  reform, 
which  in  one  evil  threatens  to  inflict  a  thousand 
others."  ^x 

The  hostile  attitude  of  Garrison  and  a  portion 
of  the  other  Abolitionists  toward  the  labor  move- 
ment very  naturally  put  a  damper  on  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  workingmen,  especially  the  organ- 
ized workmen,  for  the  Abolitionists'  movement. 
In  their  meetings,  conventions,  and  newspapers 
the  workingmen  set  forth  more  strongly  than 
ever  the  slave  character  of  wage  labor,  but  con- 
tinued as  a  matter  of  course  to  champion  the 
emancipation  of  the  Negro  slaves,  without,  how- 
ever, emphasizing  its  immediate  necessity.  A 
spokesman  of  the  Boston  workingmen,  probably 
William  West,  combated  Garrison's  views  in  the 
columns  of  the  Liberator  itself.  In  a  communi- 
cation to  this  paper  he  described  the  condition  of 
the  wage  worker  and  addressed  Garrison  in  the 
following  manner: 

"Although  you  do  not  appear  to  have  per- 
ceived it,  I  think  there  is  a  very  intimate  connec- 


42     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

tion  between  the  interests  of  the  workingmen's 
party  and  your  own.  You  are  striving  to  excite 
the  attention  of  your  countrymen  to  the  injustice 
of  holding  their  fellow-men  in  bondage  and  de- 
priving them  of  the  fruit  of  their  toil.  We  are 
aiming  at  a  similar  object,  only  in  application  to 
another  portion  of  our  fellow-men." 

West  then  discusses  the  causes  which  in  his 
opinion  bring  about  the  slavery  of  white  work- 
ingmen,  saying  among  other  things  that  "the 
value  and  the  prices  of  labor  have  been  rated  not 
by  the  worth  of  their  product,  but  by  the  power 
of  those  who  command  its  proceeds,  or  for  whom 
it  is  performed  to  obtain  it,  and  enjoy  its  bene- 
fits." .... 

And  then  West  continues : 

"You  propose  to  remedy  these  evils,  by  extend- 
ing to  the  enslaved  the  sympathy  of  the  philan- 
thropic, by  educating  and  otherwise  fitting  them 
to  take  care  of  themselves ;  and  by  awakening  the 
moral  sense  of  those  who  now  enjoy  the  fruit  of 
their  labors,  to  the  injustice  and  wickedness  of 
thus  robbing  their  fellow-men  of  the  products 
of  their  industrial  toil. 

"We  seek  to  enlighten  our  brethren  in  the 
knowledge  of  their  rights  and  duties;  to  excite 
them  to  the  acquisition  of  useful  knowledge  and 
the  practice  of  virtue;  and  to  cherish  that  self- 
respect  which  they  are  entitled  to  feel,  who  sup- 
port all  other  classes  of  society.  We,  too,  appeal 


THE    WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          43 

to  the  moral  sense  of  the  wealthy  and  powerful, 
and  to  their  justice  and  philanthropy,  in  behalf 
of  those  whose  labor  give  value  to  their  estates — 
income  to  their  capital — ornament  and  beauty  to 
their  dwellings  and  apartments.  We  demand  of 
these,  that  they  should  pay  to  the  hard-working 
farmer  and  mechanic,  not  only  a  fair  equivalent 
for  his  services,  but  that  homage  and  respect 
which  are  due  to  him  who  braves  the  inclemency 
of  winter  and  the  intensity  of  summer;  who  toils 
early  and  late  to  raise  up  into  life  a  virtuous 
family.  We  insist  that  where  reason  and  argu- 
ment will  not  avail,  it  is  a  duty  owned  by  work- 
ingmen  to  themselves  and  the  world,  to  exert 
their  power,  through  the  ballot-box, — and  by 
ameliorating  our  system  of  Laws,  to  eradicate 
those  evils  which  operate  so  extensively  and  un- 
justly." 

The  discussion  between  the  Abolitionist  and 
that  Boston  workman  went  on  through  several 
numbers  of  the  Liberator.  On  January  29,  1831, 
Garrison  answered  West  and  told  him,  that  "there 
is  a  prevalent  opinion  that  wealth  and  aristocracy 
are  indissolubly  allied;  and  the  poor  and  vulgar 
are  taught  to  consider  the  opulent  as  their  natural  - 
enemies.  Those  who  inculcate  this  pernicious  doc- 
trine are  the  worst  enemies  of  the  people,  and  in 
grain,  the  real  nobility.  There  is,  no  doubt,  an 
abuse  of  wealth  as  well  as  of  talents,  office  and 
emolument;  but  where  is  the  evidence  that  our 


44     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

wealthy  citizens,  as  a  body,  are  hostile  to  the 
interests  of  the  laboring  classes  ?  It  is  not  found 
in  their  commercial  enterprises,  which  whiten  the 
ocean  with  canvas,  and  give  employment  to  the 
useful  and  numerous  class  of  men:  it  is  not 
found  in  their  manufacturing  establishments, 
which  multiply  labor  and  cheapen  the  necessities 
of  the  poor;  it  is  not  found  in  the  luxuries  of  their 
tables,  or  the  adornments  of  their  dwellings,  for 
which  they  must  pay  in  proportion  to  their  ex- 
travagance. 

"It  is  a  miserable  characteristic  of  human  na- 
ture to  look  with  an  envious  eye  upon  those  who 
are  more  fortunate  in  their  pursuits,  or  more  ex- 
alted in  their  station.  In  every  grade,  there  are 
unprincipled,  avaricious  and  despotic  men :  but 
shall  individual  cases  condemn  the  whole  body? 
Perhaps  it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  affirm, 
that  mechanics  are  more  inimical  to  the  success 
of  each  other,  more  unjust  toward  each  other, 
than  the  rich  toward  them." 

As  we  see,  Garrison  did  not  penetrate  to  the 
kernel  of  the  matter.  He  simply  had  no  under- 
standing for  the  point  of  view  of  his  adversary, 
who  even  at  that  time,  more  than  eighty  years 
ago,  rose  far  above  the  level  of  the  mass  of  the 
American  workingmen  of  the  present  day  as  re- 
gards a  true  conception  of  the  labor  question. 

West  replied  once  more  to  Garrison's  rejoinder, 
in  these  words: 


THE   WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          45 

"You  must  concede  that  those  who  indulge  in 
luxury,  are  in  no  sense  more  deserving  than  the 
working  classes  who  live  frugally  and  in  repub- 
lican simplicity.  But  do  we  see  the  latter  en- 
joying the  advantages  of  the  former?  Where 
do  you  find  the  men  whose  toil  and  labor  have 
produced  all  the  magnificence  and  grandeur 
which  adorn  our  capital?  Living  in  the  poorest 
hovels,  or  meanest  dwellings — subsisting  on  the 
humblest  fare — working  in  all  weather,  exposed 
to  every  evil — and  enjoying  but  little  leisure  or 
opportunity  for  the  cultivation  of  heart  or  in- 
tellect. Would  this  be  so,  if  they  were  equitably 
paid  for  their  labor?  Is  it  not  obvious  that  the 
prices  of  mechanical  and  agricultural  labor  are 
altogether  too  low,  when  an  idle  libertine,  who 
produces  nothing,  can  command  the  proceeds  of 
the  labor  of  all  around  him,  and  live  at  the  cost 
which  would  support  a  hundred  industrious  work- 
ing citizens  and  their  useful  families  ?  I  am  per- 
suaded that  a  moment's  reflection  on  this  subject 
must  satisfy  you,  that  labor  is  altogether  inade- 
quately compensated.  The  very  existence  of 
such  accumulations  is  proof  of  it." 

The  antagonism  revealed  in  this  controversy 
between  the  spokesman  of  the  Abolitionists  and 
the  champion  of  the  workingmen  found  expres- 
sion during  the  whole  period  of  the  Abolitionist 
movement  whenever  the  workingman,  in  their 
meetings  or  in  their  papers,  had  occasion  to  de- 


46     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

fine  their  position  in  regard  to  Negro  slavery. 
It  would  be  a  mistake,  therefore,  to  assume  that 
Garrison's  attack  upon  the  labor  movement  was 
the  sole  cause  of  the  estrangement  existing  be- 
tween the  twro  movements,  an  estrangement  evi- 
denced among  other  things  by  the  fact  that  the 
workingmen  very  seldom  expressed  an  opinion 
about  the  efforts  for  the  abolishment  of  Negro 
slavery  and  that  the  Abolitionists  reported  very 
little  about  the  labor  movement.  The  attitude  of 
the  organized  workingmen  towards  Southern 
slavery  had  a  deeper  cause.  As  already  stated, 
this  cause  lay  in  their  awakening  class  conscious- 
ness. This  indeed  did  not  dispose  the  working- 
men  against  the  emancipation  of  the  Negro 
slaves,  but  it  suggested  to  them  that  their  own 
emancipation  was  a  matter  of  more  vital  import- 
ance to  them  than  that  of  the  Southern  blacks. 
Their  feelings  and  their  sympathies  in  general 
aligned  them  indeed  on  the  side  of  the  agitation 
in  behalf  of  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery;  but 
with  their  awakening  understanding  and  their 
dawning  insight  into  their  own  lot  the  conviction 
grew  within  them  that  their  own  emancipation 
touched  them  more  nearly.  While  the  great  mass 
of  the  unorganized  workingmen  of  New  England 
thus  furnished  the  great  body  whence  the  Abo- 
litionists drew  their  recruits,  there  came  a  reac- 
tion with  the  rise  of  the  labor  movement  and  the 
i""rmation  of  independent  organizations  by  work- 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    47 

ingmen,  whether  political  parties  or  trade  unions. 
In  the  labor  organizations  the  specific  demands  of 
labor  and  the  class  feeling  were  naturally  more 
sharply  emphasized  than  among  the  unorganized 
masses.  This  fact  explains  also  why  the  agitation 
in  behalf  of  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery  met 
with  less  response  among  the  organized  work- 
ingmen  of  that  period  than  among  the  unorgan- 
ized masses.  Though  the  hostility  of  the  Abo- 
litionists may  have  widened  the  breach,  yet  their 
own  affairs,  their  own  struggles,  and  their  ovm 
agitation — in  short,  the  awakening  class  con- 
sciousness of  the  workingmen — made  of  the  abo- 
lition of  Southern  Negro  slavery  a  matter  of  sec-**"" 
ondary  importance  to  them.  We  come  face  to 
face  with  this  fact  again  .and  again.  Labor  or- 
ganizations at  that  time  were  not  yet  well  estab- 
lished institutions.  Crises  and  accidents  of  all 
sorts  too  often  put  an  end  to  them.  But  they 
always  rose  afresh,  and  in  the  three  decades  pre- 
ceding the  Civil  War  we  note  again  and  again  the 
fact  that  with  the  rise  of  the  new  organization 
the  question  of  Negro  slavery  gives  way  to  the 
question  of  wage  slavery. 

There  is  also  to  be  noted  among  the  working- 
men  oi  that  period  a  certain  natural  suspicion  v/ 
which  is  wont  to  go  with  every  genuine  labor- 
class  movement  when  it  must  declare  itself  in 
reference  to  middle-class  reform.  For  instance, 
when,  in  the  Fall  of  1835,  Governor  Vroom,  of 


48  LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

New  York,  in  a  message  to  the  Legislature,  made 
an  attack  on  the  Abolitionists,  the  Workingmen's 
Advocate  then  published  in  New  York,  declared: 

"We  believe  that  many  of  the  Abolitionists  are 
actuated  by  a  species  of  fanaticism,  and  are  de- 
sirous of  freeing  the  slaves,  more  for  the  purpose 
of  adding  them  to  a  religious  sect,  than  for  a  love 
of  liberty  and  justice,  but  their  desire  to  free  the 
slaves,  so  far  as  they  can  do  so  by  the  force  of 
moral  power,  we  believe  to  be  a  good  and  a  just 
cause,  and  one  that  they  have  not  attempted  to 
advance  by  any  but  constitutional  means."* 

At  that  period,  especially  in  New  England,  the 
disciples  of  Fourier  and  Robert  Owen  and  other 
Utopian  social  reformers,  who  had  inaugurated 
a  great  movement  throughout  the  United  States, 
exercised  a  powerful  influence  on  the  ideas  and 
opinions  of  the  workingmen.  The  men  and 
women  participating  in  this  movement,  especially 
also  those  interested  in  the  Brook  Farm  experi- 
ment, not  only  exercised  great  influence  upon  the 
workingmen,  but  they  were  also  in  close  touch 
with  the  Abolitionists  and  they  promoted  the 
anti-slavery  cause  with  great  energy.  Whatever 
school  they  might  belong  to,  all  these  social  re- 
formers agreed  with  the  organized  workingmen 
on  the  question  of  Negro  slavery,  although  they 
took  a  livelier  interest  than  did  the  workingmen 


*  Working  Men's  Advocate,  New  York,  Nov.  21,  18%. 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    49 

in  the  special  work  of  the  Abolitionists.  In  the 
Liberator,  as  well  as  in  the  numerous  anti-slavery 
conventions,  these  social  reformers  never  tired  of 
urging  the  view  that  not  only  Negro  slavery  but 
all  slavery  must  be  abolished. 

Thus  on  May  27,  1845,  at  a  convention  of  the 
New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society,  Robert 
Owen  took  the  floor,  and  said  that  "from  an  early 
period  he  was  opposed  to  Negro  slavery,  and  also 
to  slavery  of  all  kinds.  At  home  in  England  he 
had  seen  by  far  worse  slavery  than  any  he  had 
witnessed  among  the  colored  population — all7 
should  look  at  the  great  causes  of  slavery.  They 
could  be  traced  to  the  spirit  of  inequality  in  and 
under  all  governments — all  we  wanted  was  the 
establishment  of  equal  rights  over  all  lands  and 
countries.  The  black  man  proclaimed  liberty  for 
his  color — but  he  stood  there  to  contend  for 
liberty  to  the  white  man,  who  was  bound  to  the 
most  arrant  slavery  of  all.  They  were  slaves, 
mentally  and  physically,  to  an  unequal  system  of 
government,  both  here  and  in  England,  which 
crushed  the  laborer  and  the  poor  man  everywhere 
down  to  the  dust."* 

Tn  a  series  of  articles  on  "The  Question  of 
Social  Reform,"  published  in  the  Liberator  in 
1845,  Albert  Brisbane,  the  well-known  exponent 
of  Fourier's  ideas  in  America,  speaks  of  "the 


*  Liberator,  Boston,  June  6,  1845. 


50     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

institution  of  slavery"  in  its  numerous  varieties. 
Besides  the  slavery  of  race  or  color  and  the 
slavery  of  capital,  he  speaks  of  foreign  slavery, 
home  slavery,  compound  slavery,  slavery  of  caste, 
slavery  of  the  soil  and  military  slavery.  The 
slavery  of  capital  he  defines  as  follows : 

"Slavery  of  capital,  under  which  man  is  the 
dependent  drudge,  and  the  menial  of  the  power 
of  money,  and  must  sell  his  time,  labor  and  tal- 
ents— which  is  equivalent  to  selling  himself  day 
by  day,  or  by  retail — to  him  who  has  the  means 
of  buying  them.  With  a  thick  population,  and 
anarchical  competition  among  the  laboring  classes 
for  work,  the  toiling  millions  are  subjected,  un- 
der this  variety  of  servitude,  to  the  most  pro- 
longed and  oppressive  drudgery,  and  reduced  to 
the  most  abject  poverty  and  destitution.  This 
miserable  system,  which  wears  out  the  souls  and 
bodies  of  the  working  classes  enriching  the  few, 
and  leaves  them  and  their  families  to  starve  in 
sickness  and  old  age,  is  only  a  modification  of 
serfdom  and  one  degree  above  slavery;  it  sways 
with  iron  rule  the  destinies  of  the  laboring  classes, 
where  slavery  and  serfdom  no  longer  crush  them 
to  the  earth. 

"If  there  is  a  reform  which  is  imperiously  de- 
manded, it  is  a  reform  of  this  servitude  to  capital, 
which  is  sinking  the  working  classes  of  this 
country  into  poverty  and  dependence,  blotting  out 
their  manhood,  and  thus  destroying  morally  the 


THE   WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          51 

only  population  on  earth  which  has  the  intelli- 
gence and  the  political  power  to  effect  a  great  and 
universal  reform  that  will  redeem  the  whole  of 
the  human  family  from  the  condition  in  which 
they  are  sunk.  It  would  be  a  noble  step,  it  strikes 
me.  if  the  advanced  guard  of  the  Abolitionists 
would  include  in  their  movement  a  reform  of  the 
present  wretched  organization  of  labor,  called  the 
wage  system.  It  would  add  to  their  power  by 
interesting  the  producing  classes  in  a  great  in- 
dustrial reform  including  chattel  slavery,  and 
would  prepare  a  better  state  for  the  slaves  when 
emancipated,  than  that  of  servitude  to  capital, 
to  which  they  now  seem  to  be  destined/'* 

It  is  surely  needless  to  note  especially  the  fact 
that  Brisbane's  appeal  to  the  Abolitionists  was  in 
vain.  They  were  unable  to  understand  him  and 
the  aspirations  of  the  workingmen,  and  to  some 
extent  probably  did  not  want  to  understand. 

It  was  at  this  time,  in  the  summer  of  1845. 
while  Brisbane  was  publishing  his  series  of  ar- 
ticles, that  Horace  Greeley  issued  his  celebrated  •' 
definition  of  slavery.  He  had  been  invited  to  at- 
tend an  anti-slavery  convention.  He  declined 
the  invitation  and  took  occasion  to  show  where- 
in he  disagreed  with  the  callers  of  the  convention, 
his  aim  being  to  unite  all  opponents  of  slavery 

*  Liberator,  Sept.  5,  1845. 


52  LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

and  of  all  slavery.  He  raised  the  question :  What 
is  slavery?  and  answered  it  as  follows: 

"What  is  slavery?  You  will  probably  answer, 
The  legal  subjection  of  one  human  being  to  the 
will  and  power  of  another.'  But  this  definition 
appears  to  me  inaccurate  on  both  sides — too 
broad;  and  at  the  same  time  too  narrow.  It  is 
too  broad,  in  that  it  includes  the  subjection 
founded  in  other  necessities,  not  less  stringent 
than  those  imposed  by  statute.  We  must  seek 
some  truer  definition. 

"I  understand  by  slavery,  that  condition  in 
which  one  human  being  exists  mainly  as  a  con- 
venience for  other  hitman  beings — in  which  the 
time,  the  exertions,  the  faculties  of  a  part  of  the 
human  family  are  made  to  subserve,  not  their 
own  development,  physical,  intellectual  and 
moral,  but  the  comfort,  advantage  or  caprices 
of  others.  In  short,  wherever  service  is  rendered 
from  one  human  being  to  another,  on  a  footing 
of  one-sided  and  not  of  mutual  obligation — where 
the  relation  between  the  servant  and  the  served 
is  one  not  of  affection  and  reciprocal  good  of- 
fices, but  of  authority,  social  ascendency  and 
power  over  subsistence  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
necessity,  servility  and  degradation  on  the  other 
— there,  in  my  view,  is  slavery. 

"You  will  readily  understand,  therefore,  that, 
if  I  regard  your  enterprise  with  less  absorbing 
interest  than  vou  do,  it  is  not  that  I  deem  slavery 


THE    WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          53 

a  less,  but  a  greater  evil.  If  I  am  less  troubled 
concerning  the  slavery  prevalent  in  Charleston  or 
New  Orleans,  it  is  because  I  see  so  much  slavery 
in  New  York,  which  appears  to  claim  my  first 
efforts.  I  rejoice  in  believing  that  there  is  less 
of  it  in  your  several  communities  and  neighbor- 
hoods ;  but  that  it  does  exist  there,  I  am  compelled 
to  believe.  In  esteeming  it  my  duty  to  preach 
reform  first  to  my  own  neighbor  and  kindred,  I 
would  by  no  means  attempt  to  censure  those 
whose  conscience  prescribes  a  different  course. 
Still  less  would  I  undertake  to  say  that  the 
slavery  of  the  South  is  not  more  hideous  in  kind 
and  degree  than  that  which  prevails  at  the  North. 
The  fact  that  it  is  more  flagrant  and  palpable 
renders  opposition  to  it  comparatively  easy  and 
its  speedy  downfall  certain.  But  how  can  I  de- 
vote myself  to  a  crusade  against  distant  servitude, 
when  I  discern  its  essence  pervading  my  immedi- 
ate community  and  neighborhood?  nay,  when 
I  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  banishing  it  even 
from  my  own  humble  household?  Wherever 
may  lie  the  sphere  of  duty  of  others,  is  not  mine 
obviously  here? 

"Let  me  state  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  essen- 
tial characteristics  of  human  slavery: 

"1.  Wherever  certain  human  beings  devote 
their  time  and  thoughts  mainly  to  obeying  and 
serving  other  human  beings,  and  this  not  because 


54     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

they  choose  to  do  so,  but  because  they  must,  there 
(I  think)  is  slavery. 

"2.  Wherever  human  beings  exist  in  such  re- 
lations that  a  part,  because  of  the  position  they 
occupy  and  the  functions  they  perform,  are  gen- 
erally considered  an  inferior  class  to  those  who 
perform  other  functions,  or  none,  there  (I  think) 
is  slavery. 

"3.  Wherever  the  ownership  of  the  soil  is  so 
engrossed  by  a  small  part  of  the  community  that 
the  far  larger  number  are  compelled  to  pay  what- 
ever the  few  may  see  fit  to  exact  for  the  privilege 
of  occupying  and  cultivating  the  earth,  there  is 
something  very  like  slavery. 

"4.  Wherever  opportunity  to  labor  is  ob- 
tained with  difficulty,  and  is  so  deficient  that  the 
employing  class  may  virtually  prescribe  their  own 
terms  and  pay  the  laborer  only  such  share  as 
they  choose  of  the  product,  there  is  a  very  strong 
tendency  to  slavery. 

"5.  Wherever  it  is  deemed  more  reputable  to 
live  without  labor  than  by  labor,  so  that  'a  gentle- 
man' would  be  rather  ashamed  of  his  descent 
from  a  blacksmith  than  from  an  idler  or  mere 
pleasure-seeker,  there  is  a  community  not  very 
far  from  slavery.  And— 

"6.  Wherever  one  human  being  deems  it  hon- 
orable and  right  to  have  other  human  beings 
mainly  devoted  to  his  or  her  convenience  or  com- 
fort, and  thus  to  live,  diverting  the  labor  of  these 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    55 

persons  from  all  productive  or  general  useful- 
ness to  his  or  her  own  special  uses,  while  he  or 
she  is  rendering  or  has  rendered  no  correspond- 
ing service  to  the  cause  of  human  well-being, 
there  exists  the  spirit  which  originated  and  still 
sustains  human  slavery. 

"I  might  multiply  these  illustrations  indefin- 
itely, but  I  dare  not  so  trespass  on  your  patience. 
Rather  allow  me  to  apply  the  principles  here 
evolved  in  illustration  of  what  I  deem  the  duties 
and  policy  of  Abolitionists  in  reference  to  their 
cause.  And  here  I  would  advise: 

"Oppose  slavery  in  all  its  forms.  Be  at  least 
as  careful  not  to  be  a  slave-holder  as  not  to  vote 
for  one.  Be  as  tenacious  that  your  own  wives, 
children,  hired  men  and  women,  tenants,  etc., 
enjoy  the  blessings  of  rational  liberty,  as  that  the 
slaves  of  South  Carolina  do " 

Whether  it  was  that  men  like  Owen,  Brisbane, 
Greeley  and  others  influenced  the  leaders  of  the 
Abolitionists,  or  whether  these  independently 
came  to  see  that  it  would  amount  to  cutting  off 
the  branch  on  which  they  were  sitting  if  they 
persisted  in  challenging  the  hostility  of  the  labor 
movement,  the  fact  is  that  the  attacks  of  Gar- 
rison and  his  friends  on  the  independent  organ- 
ization of  the  working  class  were  in  the  main 
confined  to  the  first  beginnings  of  the  Abolition- 
ist movement.  They  soon  ceased,  and  the  old 
antagonism  found  vent  only  now  and  again,  on 


56     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

special  occasions.  Of  course,  the  early  attempts 
at  an  independent  political  labor  movement  in 
New  England  and  in  New  York  in  the  thirties 
were  doomed  to  failure.  The  crises  of  1837  put 
an  end  also  to  the  frail  beginnings  of  trade-union 
organizations,  so  that  there  was  little  occasion  for 
collision  between  the  Abolitionists  and  the  labor 
movement.  But  it  seems  also  that  the  spokesmen 
of  the  former  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would 
be  in  the  interest  of  their  own  agitation  if  they 
left  the  labor  organizations  in  peace. 

Some  of  the  Abolitionist  leaders  gradually 
even  came  to  conceive  sound  views  in  regard  to 
the  labor  question.  Most  noted  among  these  was  / 
Wendell  Phillips,  who  in  later  years,  after  the^ 
abolition  of  Negro  slavery  had  been  accom- 
plished, thoroughly  identified  himself  with  the 
emancipatory  aspirations  of  the  workingmen. 
In  a  speech  delivered  in  1847  before  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  in  Boston,  he  suggested,  for  in- 
stance, that  people  cease  using  the  products  of 
slave  labor — in  other  words,  that  they  declare  a 
boycott  against  Southern  goods.  On  this  occa- 
sion he  expressed  himself  as  follows : 

''In  my  opinion  the  great  question  of  labor, 
when  it  shall  come  up,  will  be  found  paramount 
to  others,  and  the  operatives  of  New  England, 
peasants  of  Ireland  and  laborers  of  South  Amer- 
ica, will  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  the  sympathy  for 
the  Southern  slave." 


THE    WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          57 

A  labor  paper,  in  calling  attention  to  these  re- 
marks, said: 

"Mr.  Phillips  is  on  the  high  road  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  social  reform.  May  he  and  like  philan- 
thropists be  brought  to  see  that  slavery,  war, 
poverty  and  oppression  are  inseparable  from  the 
system  of  civilization,  the  system  of  antagonism 
of  interest;  that  the  only  effectual  remedy  is  the 
introduction  of  a  higher  system  of  union  of  in- 
terest and  union  of  industry."* 

In  the  middle  of  the  forties  an  active  labor 
movement  sprang  into  being  which  sought  to  ex- 
tend its  activities  alike  over  the  political  and  the 
economic  field.  Gatherings  and  labor  conven- 
tions were  of  daily  occurrence,  everywhere  labor 
organizations  were  formed  and  labor  papers 
started.  The  organized  workingmen  emphasized 
their  sympathy  for  the  Negro  slaves  of  the 
South,  but  did  not  fail  to  point  out  again  and 
again  the  necessity  for  the  abolition  of  wage 
slavery.  In  an  appeal  to  the  workingmen  of  New 
England,  L.  W.  Ryckman,  president  of  the  New 
England  Workingmen's  Association,  called  on 
them  to  "abolish  all  slavery,  by  connecting  the 
obligation  to  cultivate,  with  the  right  to  own 
the  land."** 

Half  a  year  later,  on  January  16,  1846,  a  con- 


*  George  E.  McNeil :    The  Labor  Movement.     1887.     p. 
113. 
**  Liberator,  July  4,  1845. 


58     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

vent  ion  of  New  England  workingmen  met  at 
Lynn,  Mass.,  and  took  such  unequivocal  ground 
against  Negro  slavery  as  to  make  it  perfectly 
clear  that  the  special  emphasis  placed  on  the  class 
interests  of  the  workingmen,  the  demand  for  the 
abolition  of  all  slavery,  certainly  did  not  imply 
any  friendship  for  the  slaveholders  of  the  South 
and  for  Negro  slavery.  Public  opinion  in  the 
United  States  at  that  time  was  excited  by  the 
impending  war  with  Mexico  for  the  possession 
of  Texas — a  war,  in  fact,  waged  for  the  exten- 
sion of  Negro  slavery  and  in  the  interest  of  the 
slaveholders.  A  resolution  was  adopted  at  this 
convention  which  is  characteristic  of  the  uncom- 
promising sentiments  entertained  by  the  working- 
men  of  the  North,  despite  the  opposition  of  the 
Abolitionists  to  their  demands.  This  resolution 
was  worded: 

"Whereas,  there  are  at  the  present  time  three 
millions  of  our  brethren  and  sisters  groaning  in 
chains  on  the  Southern  plantations;  and,  where- 
as, we  wish  not  only  to  be  consistent,  but  to 
secure  to  all  others  those  rights  and  privileges 
for  which  we  are  contending  ourselves;  there- 
fore, 

"Resolved,  that  while  we  honor  and  respect  our 
forefathers  for  the  noble  manner  in  which  they 
resisted  British  oppression,  we,  their  descendants, 
will  never  be  guilty  of  the  glaring  inconsistency 
of  taking  up  arms  to  shoot  and  to  stab  those  who 


THE    WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          59 

use   the   same   means   to    accomplish   the   same 
objects. 

"Resolved,  that  while  we  are  willing  to  pledge 
ourselves  to  use  all  means  in  our  power,  consis- 
tent with  our  principles,  to  put  down  wars,  in- 
surrections and  mobs,  and  to  protect  all  men  from 
the  evils  of  the  same,  we  will  not  take  up  arms 
to  sustain  the  Southern  slaveholders  in  robbing 
one-fifth  of  our  countrymen  of  their  labor. 

"Resolved,  that  we  recommend  our  brethren 
to  speak  out  in  thunder  tones,  both  as  associa- 
tions and  as  individuals,  and  to  let  it  no  longer  bo 
said  that  Northern  laborers,  while  they  are  con- 
tending for  their  rights,  are  a  standing  army  to 
keep  three  millions  of  their  brethren  and  sisters 
in  bondage  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet."* 

Among  the  labor  papers  which  the  new  move- 
ment had  called  into  life,  The  Working  Men's 
Advocate,  with  George  H.  Evans  as  editor,  was 
one  of  the  most  prominent.  Later,  in  1846,  the 
paper  changed  its  title  to  Young  America,  and  / 
in  the  main  championed  the  demands  of  the  Free 
Soilers,  but  for  the  rest  remained  a  stanch  de- 
fender of  the  interests  of  labor.  In  this  paper  the 
antagonism  between  the  Abolitionists  and  the  la- 
bor movement  was  pointedly  revealed,  and  occa- 
sionally Evans  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  himself 
quite  frankly  against  Negro  emancipation,  on  the 


*  McNeil :    The  Labor  Movement,    p.  107. 


60     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

ground  that  in  his  opinion  the  blacks  would  be 
economically  in  a  worse  position  under  the  system 
of  wage  labor  than  they  were  under  slavery. 

Evans  felt  especially  embittered  over  the  fact 
that  in  England,  where  the  Abolitionists  had 
many  connections  and  where  a  great  outcry  was 
made  against  Negro  slavery,  no  voice  was  raised 
within  the  ruling  classes  against  the  frightful 
conditions  produced  by  industrial  development 
among  wide  sections  of  the  English  workingmen. 
In  Young  America  he  reproached  particularly  the 
English  correspondents  of  Garrison's  Liberator 
with  *  'never  having  a  word  to  say  against  the 
worse  slavery  of  the  plundered  landless  of  Eng- 
land." Wendell  Phillips  protested  against  this 
assertion  and  declared  the  statements  of  Evans 
to  be  false.  Evans  replied  in  Young  America: 

''If  it  is  betime  as  I  most  firmly  believe  it  is,  ^ 
that  wage  slavery  in  its  legitimate  results  of 
crowded  cities,  debasing  servitude,  rent  exactions, 
disease,  crime  and  prostitution,  as  they  now  ap- 
pear in  England  and  in  our  Northern  and  Eastern 
States,  are  even  more  destructive  of  life,  health 
and  happiness  than  chattel  slavery,  as  it  exists  in 
our  Southern  States,  then  the  efforts  of  those 
who  are  endeavoring  to  substitute  wages  for  chat- 
tel slavery  are  greatly  misdirected,  and  if  they 
cannot  be  convinced  of  their  error,  they  should, 
if  possible,  be  prevented  from  making  more  con- 
verts to  their  erroneous  doctrine.  . 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    61 

".  .  .  .As  the  Liberator's  correspondents  sel- 
dom, if  ever,  allude  to  the  giant  wrong  of  Eng- 
land, the  usurpation  of  the  soil,  which  makes  the 
working  classes  the  slaves  of  wages,  they  are 
probably  in  as  blissful  ignorance  of  any  wrong  in 
the  matter  as  the  'young  master'  of  a  Southern 
plantation  who  believes  that  he  was  born  to  be 
waited  upon  by  the  dark  skins. 

"Those  who,  like  the  editor  of  the  Liberator, 
are  willing  to  devote  themselves  to  the  object  of 
redressing  the  manifest  injustice  of  society,  can- 
not well  afford  to  be  divided  in  their  forces 

The  National  Reform  measures  would  not 
merely  substitute  one  form  of  slavery  for  an- 
other, but  would  replace  every  form  of  slavery 
by  entire  freedom."* 

In  a  communication  to  the  editor  of  the  Liber- 
ator in  which  he  thanked  him  for  publishing 
Evans'  reply  to  Phillips,  William  West  attempted 
to  soften  its  harshness.  He  wrote,  among  other 
things :  "They  [the  workingmen]  do  not  hate 
chattel  slavery  less,  but  they  hate  wage  slavery 
more.  Their  rallying  cry  is :  'Down  with  all 
slavery,  both  chattel  and  wages.' ' 

But  Evans  had  become  so  obsessed  with  the 
idea  that  wage  slavery  was  a  harder  lot  than  the 
slavery  of  the  Negro,  and  he  was  so  convinced 
that  the  realization  of  the  programme  of  the  Na- 


Liberator,  Sept.  4,  1846. 


62     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

tional  Reformers  and  of  "free  land"  would  re- 
move all  evils,  that  he  completely  lost  sight  of 
the  importance  of  the  solution  of  the  question  of 
Negro  slavery.  He  had  no  comprehension  of 
the  fact  that  the  solution  of  the  question  of  Negro 
slavery  was  a  condition  precedent  to  the  success 
of  the  labor  movement.  He  regarded  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  workingmen  from  wage  slavery 
with  a  certain  religious  fanaticism,  with  the  re- 
sult that  he  became  embroiled  in  controversies  not 
only  with  the  Abolitionists,  as  against  whom  he 
was  in  the  right,  but  also  with  the  leaders  and 
champions  of  the  working  class  itself,  and  in  these 
was  often  carried  to  such  extremes  by  his  re- 
ligio-fanatical  zeal  that  his  hatred  of  the  white 
slavery  of  the  wage  laborers  came  near  turning 
into  a  defence  of  Negro  slavery. 

In  April,  1844,  there  appeared  in  the  chief  or- 
gan of  the  English  Chartists,  the  Northern  Star 
of  Leeds,  published  by  Feargus  O'Connor,  a 
leading  article  entitled  "Abuses  of  American  Re- 
publicanism." As  the  first  count  in  illustration 
of  the  abuse  of  republicanism  in  America  we  find 
cited  here  Negro  slavery,  concerning  which 
O'Connor  wrote: 

"That  damning  stain  upon  the  American  es- 
cutcheon is  one  that  has  caused  the  republicans 
of  Europe  to  weep  for  very  shame  and  mortifi- 
cation; and  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
much  to  answer  for  at  the  bar  of  humanity  for 


THE   WORKERS    OF   THE    NORTH          63 

this  indecent,  cruel,  revolting  and  fiendish  viola- 
tion of  their  boasted  principle — that  'All  men  are 
born  free  and  equal.' ' 

Another  abuse  of  American  republicanism 
O'Connor  found  in  the  fact  that  the  struggle  of 
the  working  classes  of  England,  "their  own  kith 
and  kin,"  had  excited  no  sympathy  among  the 
Americans.  "With  a  million  times  the  difficul- 
ties to  contend  with  that  the  Americans  had,  the 
English  Chartists  have  been  ridiculed  and  cul- 
minated by  a  no  small  section  of  the  republican 
(?)  press  for  seeking  the  establishment  of  the 
very  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence. But  this  we  cease  to  be  surprised  at, 
when  we  find  the  patriots  of  Rhode  Island  treated 
as  'rebels'  for  demanding  universal  suffrage." 

For  Evans  the  conditions  in  England  and  the 
lot  of  the  workingmen  there  represented  the  depth 
of  degradation,  and  he  consequently  did  not  re- 
ceive O'Connor's  attack  on  America  good-natur- 
edly. He  replied  to  it  in  an  article  in  the  Work- 
ing Men's  Advocate  of  June  1,  1844,  in  which 
he  said,  among  other  things : 

"The  Northern  Star  does  not  seem  to  under- 
stand the  difficulty  of  the  slavery  system  which 
British  rule  has  entailed  on  this  country;  does 
not  appear  to  know  that  the  white  slave  states 
have  no  more  to  do  with  the  black  slave  states 
on  this  question  than  they  have  with  England; 
does  not  appear  to  see  that  a  restoration  of  the 


64     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

right  to  land  would  strike  at  the  root  of  all 
slavery. 

"We  of  the  North  may  sympathize  with  the 
Southern  slave,  who  is  secure  of  a  home  and  a 
subsistence,  such  as  they  are,  at  every  stage  of 
factory  slave  of  England,  whose  toil  is  harder 
and  whose  fare  is  more  scanty  than  the  blacks 
while  able  to  work,  and  who  must  starve  or  be  a 
prisoner  in  his  premature  old  age;  but,  while  the 
same  abuse  is  in  quick  operation  among  ourselves 
from  which  both  systems  of  slavery  have  sprung, 
and  while  we  'have  the  axe/  shall  we  waste  our 
time  in  fruitless  sympathy,  or  shall  we  ply  the 
instrument  to  the  roots  of  the  upas?" 

Evans  held  that  the  solution  of  the  question  of 
wage  slavery  contained  the  solution  of  all  other 
questions,  consequently  also  of  Negro  slavery, 
and  he  believed  so  firmly  in  this  solution  through 
the  realization  of  the  free  land  plank  of  the  Na- 
tional Reformers,  which  was  to  guarantee  to 
every  citizen  160  acres  of  land,  that  he  regarded 
all  other  aspirations  as  superfluous  and  directed 
his  own  efforts  stubbornly  toward  this  one  end. 
Notwithstanding  that  he  compared  the  more  se- 
cure lot  of  the  Negro  slaves  to  the  uncertain  life 
of  the  wage  workers,  he  was  far  from  seeing  re- 
dress in  the  further  enslavement  of  the  latter. 
He  hated  both  forms  of  slavery  equally,  and  only 
set  forth  the  dark  sides  of  wage  slavery  the  more 
glaringly  because  he  believed  that  it  depended 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    65 

simply  on  the  good  will  of  men  whether  or  not 
wage  slavery  could  be  abolished.  In  his  view 
men  needed  only  to  will  it,  in  order  to  revolution- 
ize, reorganize  and  improve  society.  Neither 
Evans,  nor  the  social  reformers  of  all  shades, 
nor  the  workingmen  in  the  forties  knew  any- 
thing about  the  historical  and  economic  prere- 
quisites for  such  change.  This  fact  explains  why 
some  of  them  regarded  the  emancipation  of  the 
Negro  slaves  as  superfluous.  Why,  they  argued, 
agitate  for  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery  if  by 
the  same  effort  not  only  the  slavery  of  the  blacks 
but  also  the  slavery  of  the  whites,  of  the  wage 
laborers,  may  be  abolished?  This  reasoning, 
moreover,  explains  the  zeal  with  which  Evans  at- 
tempted to  convert  prominent  Abolitionists  to  his 
views. 

One  of  the  Abolitionists  who  had  won  great 
fame  as  a  champion  of  his  cause  was  Gerrit 
Smith  of  New  York,  a  wealthy  landowner  and 
philanthropist,  to  whom  Evans  addressed  an  open 
letter  with  the  appeal  that  he  devote  himself  to 
the  cause  of  the  workingmen  and  the  National 
Reformers.  He  wrote,  in  part : 

"All  I  ask  of  you  is,  seeing  as  I  trust  you  now 
do,  that  white  as  well  as  black  slavery  is  wrong, 
that  you  lend  your  aid  to  prevent  the  further  ex- 
tension of  the  evil;  to  prevent  any  further  sale 
of  the  land  that  is  now  unappropriated  as  private 
property ;  that  you  take  the  mote  out  of  your  own 


66     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

eye,  before  you  attempt  to  pluck  that  out  of  your 
neighbor's 

".  .  .  .  I  was  formerly,  like  yourself,  sir,  a 
very  warm  advocate  of  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
This  was  before  I  saw  that  there  was  white 
slavery.  Since  I  saw  this,  I  have  materially 
changed  my  views  as  to  the  means  of  abolishing 
Negro  slavery.  I  now  see,  clearly,  I  think,  that 
to  give  the  landless  black  the  privilege  of  chang- 
ing masters  now  possessed  by  the  landless  white, 
would  hardly  be  a  benefit  to  him  in  exchange  for 
his  surity  of  support  in  sickness  and  old  age,  al- 
though he  is  in  a  favorable  climate.  If  the  South- 
ern form  of  slavery  existed  at  the  North,  I  should 
say  the  black  would  be  a  great  loser  by  such  a 
change/'* 

Smith  frankly  admitted  that  he  did  not  under- 
stand Evans'  reasoning,  and  declared  that  he  had 
never  before  heard  similar  opinions  expressed 
and  that  he  could  not  accept  them.  Smith  was 
subsequently  elected  (1852)  to  the  lower  house 
of  Congress  as  an  Abolitionist.  That  his  views 
had  undergone  considerable  change  in  the  mean- 
time is  evidenced  by  the  following  extract  from 
a  speech  delivered  in  Congress  in  1854: 

"The  world  will  be  much  happier  when  land 
monopoly  shall  cease,  because  manual  labor  will 
then  be  so  honorable,  because  so  well-nigh  uni- 


*  Working  Men's  Advocate,  July  4,  1844. 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    67 

versal.  It  will  be  happier,  too,  because  the  wage 
system,  with  all  its  attendant  degradation  and  un- 
happy influences,  will  find  but  little  room  in  the 
new  and  radically  changed  condition  of  society." 

The  position  of  Evans  and  his  friends  is  very 
neatly  brought  out  in  a  series  of  parables  which 
he  quoted  in  his  paper:  "The  poor  Negro,"  he 
said;  "must  work  for  others  or  be  flogged;  the 
poor  white  man  must  work  for  others,  or  be 
starved.  The  poor  Negro  is  subjected  to  a  single 
master;  the  poor  white  man  is  subjected  to  many 
masters — to  a  master  class.  The  poor  Negro 
leads  the  life  of  a  farm-horse;  the  poor  white 
man,  like  a  horse  kept  at  a  livery  stable,  is  worked 
by  everybody  and  cared  for  by  nobody.  The  poor 
Negro  has  a  master  both  in  sickness  and  in 
health ;  the  poor  white  man  is  a  slave  only  so  long 
as  he  is  able  to  toil,  and  a  pauper  when  he  can 
toil  no  more."* 

Only  a  few  of  the  labor  leaders  of  that  period 
were  carried  to  such  extremes  by  their  bitterness 
as  was  Evans,  who  in  his  work  and  zeal  in  be- 
half of  the  emancipation  of  the  wage  workers 
almost  became  a  champion  of  Negro  slavery. 
The  mass  of  the  organized  workingmen  of  the 
Northeastern  portion  of  the  country  remained 
hostile  to  Negro  slavery;  they  were  among  the 
most  enthusiastic  agitators  in  the  Abolitionist 


Working  Men's  Advocate,  June  22,  1844. 


68     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

cause.  But  they  never  failed,  in  the  interest  of 
their  class,  to  emphasize  the  desirability  of  the 
improvement  of  their  own  lot  and  the  necessity 
of  the  abolition  of  wage  slavery. 

The  Revolution  of  1848  in  Europe  met  with 
a  ready  response  in  America  and  gave  a  fresh 
impetus  to  both  Abolitionism  and  the  labor  move- 
ment. When  the  news  reached  these  shores  of 
the  insurrection  of  the  people  of  Paris  in  Febru- 
ary, 1848,  a  whole  series  of  labor  meetings,  and 
especially  trade-union  meetings,  was  called  to 
pass  resolutions  conveying  to  the  people  of  Paris 
the  felicitation  of  the  American  working  class. 
On  May  9th  a  mass  meeting  of  the  workingmen 
of  Boston  was  called  in  Faneuil  Hall  for  the  pur- 
pose of  expressing  their  sympathies  with  the 
workingmen  of  Europe  and  of  discussing  the 
state  of  labor  movement  in  America.  Albert  T. 
Wright  was  the  chairman  of  the  meeting.  Some 
of  the  resolutions  passed  congratulated  the  work- 
ing people  of  France  and  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment in  Paris  and  expressed  the  sympathy  of  the 
workingmen  of  Boston  for  the  Chartists  in  Eng- 
land and  the  Repealers  in  Ireland.  A  further 
resolution  passed  by  the  meeting  was  as  follows : 

"While  we  rejoice  in  the  organization  of  free 
institutions  in  the  old  world,  we  are  not  indiffer- 
ent to  their  support  at  home,  and  we  regret  the 
despotic  attitude  of  the  slave  power  at  the  South, 
and  the  domineering  ascendency  of  the  monied 


THE  WORKERS  OF  THE  NORTH    69 

oligarchy  in  the  North  as  equally  hostile  to  the 
interests  of  labor,  and  incompatible  with  the  pre- 
servation of  popular  rights. 

"Resolved,  that  if  we  would  procure  the  pas- 
sage of  just  and  efficient  laws  to  protect  labor, 
and  raise  it  from  its  present  degrading  depen- 
dence on  wealth,  we  must  purge  the  halls  of  legis- 
lation of  the  hirelings  who  basely  pander  to  the 
interests  of  capital,  and  to  accomplish  this  result 
we  recommend  for  the  laboring  classes  to  try  for 
once  the  experiment  of  trusting  the  management 
of  their  political  affairs  to  men  of  their  own  class, 
who  know  their  interests  and  have  a  fellow-feel- 
ing in  supporting  them."* 

As  we  see,  the  industrial  workingmen  still 
clung  to  the  idea  that  it  was  not  alone  the  South- 
ern oligarchy  of  slaveholders,  but  also  the  money 
power  of  the  North,  that  had  to  be  combated— 
a  view  which  survived  into  the  fifties,  but  which 
thereafter  was  less  emphasized,  presumably  be- 
cause the  social  reformers  of  different  tendencies 
who  had  stirred  the  working  masses  by  the  cry  of 
wage  slavery  gradually  began  to  disappear  from 
the  scene. 

As  the  movement  against  Negro  slavery  gained 
in  momentum,  the  conviction  that  the  slavery  of 
the  blacks  was  doomed  naturally  took  firmer  hold 
also  of  the  working  class.  We  note  here  the  fact, 

*  McNeil,     p.   115. 


70  LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

easily  enough  to  be  explained,  that  the  working 
classes  of  the  purely  industrial  centers,  especially 
of  New  England,  took  a  more  decided  stand 
against  Negro  slavery  than  those  of  the  large 
cities  like  Boston  and  New  York,  where  Demo- 
cratic influences  were  active  in  behalf  of  the 
slaveholders  and  where,  through  commerce,  vari- 
ous economical  considerations  tended  to  dispose 
the  workingmen  in  favor  of  Negro  slavery. 

2.    THE  GERMAN  WORKINGMEN   IN  AMERICA 
AND  SLAVERY. 

In  the  forties  and  fifties  the  immigrant  Ger- 
man workingmen  played  an  important  part  in  the 
United  States,  Especially  in  New  York  and  its 
vicinity.  Entire  trades  were  in  their  hands,  and 
from  the  start  they  took  an  active  part  in  the  la- 
bor movement.  Indeed,  they  were  the  pioneers  of 
the  modern  radical  wing. 

In  their  travels  through  Switzerland,  France 
and  England,  German  workingmen  of  that  period 
were  powerfully  influenced  by  the  secret  Com- 
munist organizations  which  had  everywhere 
sprung  into  life.  Members  of  the  Bund  der  Ge- 
rechten,  of  the  Kommunisten-Bund,  of  Weitling's 
workingmen's  leagues,  of  the  workingmen's  so- 
cieties for  self-culture  in  Switzerland,  Paris 
and  London,  came  flocking  to  the  United  States 
and  made  converts  to  their  views.  In  the  middle 
of  the  forties,  on  the  initiative  of  a  certain  Her- 


THE   GERMAN   WORKINGMEN  71 

mann  Kriege,  there  was  formed  a  branch  society 
of  the  Bund  der  Gerechten,  from  which  sprang  a 
German  branch,  Jung  Amerika,  which  took  up 
and  championed  the  demands  of  the  American 
land  reformers. 

By  the  end  of  the  forties  the  German  labor 
organizations  had  already  attained  to  great  power 
and  influence.  Often,  on  Sunday  afternoons,  in 
the  public  parks,  one  could  hear  addresses  in  the 
German  language  propagating  Communist  ideas, 
though  not  very  clearly  defined.  The  Commun- 
ist propaganda  was,  moreover,  supported  by 
weekly  papers  in  New  York,  Philadelphia  and 
St.  Louis;  and  when,  in  1848,  the  overthrow  of 
the  Revolution  drove  tens  of  thousands  of  revo- 
lutionary Germans  to  America,  the  number  of 
these  Socialist  Communist  papers  was  very 
largely  increased. 

We  have  seen  that  the  workingmen  of  New 
England  early  defined  their  position  in  regard  to 
Negro  slavery.  They  condemned  it,  but  at  the 
same  time  always  emphasized  the  necessity  of 
abolishing  wage  labor,  which  they  described, 
much  to  the  chagrin  of  the  Abolitionists,  as 
"white  slavery." 

This  position,  which  was  assigned  to  the  work- 
ingmen by  their  dawning  class  consciousness,  we 
find  also  taken  by  the  German  workingmen  of 
this  country,  especially  those  of  New  York,  only 
with  greater  intensity,  presumably  because  they 


72     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

had  developed  a  profounder  understanding  of  the 
aims  and  ends  of  the  labor  movement.  The  con- 
sciousness of  the  necessity  of  the  struggle  to 
achieve  their  own  emancipation  carried  these 
workingmen  to  such  extremes  as  to  dispose  cer- 
tain sections  of  them,  under  demagogic  influence, 
even  in  favor  of  slavery.  They  failed  to  perceive 
the  historical  necessity  of  the  abolition  of  Negro 
slavery  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  improve- 
ment of  their  own  lot. 

In  an  article  in  a  New  York  labor  paper,  en- 
titled "Our  Position  on  the  Issues  of  the  Day," 
in  1846,  Hermann  Kriege  declared  with  special 
reference  to  the  slavery  question: 

'That  we  see  in  the  slavery  question  a  property 
question  which  cannot  be  settled  by  itself  alone. 
That  we  should  declare  ourselves  in  favor  of  the 
Abolitionist  movement  if  it  were  our  intention  to 
throw  the  Republic  into  a  state  of  anarchy,  to  ex- 
tend the  competition  of  'free  workingmen'  beyond 
all  measure,  and  to  depress  labor  itself  to  the  last 
extremity.  That  we  could  not  improve  the  lot  of 
our  'black  brothers'  by  abolition  under  the  condi- 
tions prevailing  in  modern  society,  but  make  in- 
finitely worse  the  lot  of  our  'white  brothers.' 
That  we  believe  in  the  peaceable  development  of 
society  in  the  United  States  and  do  not,  there- 
fore, here  at  least  see  our  only  hope  in  a  condition 
of  the  extremest  degradation.  That  we  feel  con- 
strained, therefore,  to  oppose  Abolition  with  all 


THE  GERMAN   WORKINGMEN  73 

.    /V 

our  might,  despite  all  the  importunities  of  senti- 
mental philistines  and  despite  all  the  poetical  effu- 
sions of  liberty-intoxicated  ladies." 

Wilhelm  Weitling,  the  German  Communist 
who  came  to  America  in  1847  and  started  a  lively 
agitation  among  the  German  workingmen,  also 
had  only  disdain  for  the  Abolitionists,  and  gave 
only  scant  attention  to  the  question  of  slavery, 
which  at  the  time  of  his  public  career  was  begin- 
ning to  crowd  out  all  other  questions.  He  indeed 
never  forgot  himself  so  far  as  to  vent  his  spleen 
against  the  Abolitionists  in  the  silly  fashion  of 
Kriege  (who  had  evidently  been  influenced  by 
George  H.  Evans)  or  to  openly  side  with  the 
slaveholder.  But  we  search  in  vain  the  columns 
of  the  labor  paper  which  Weitling  published  in 
New  York  during  the  fifties,  or  his  other  public 
utterances,  for  an  explicit  condemnation  of 
slavery — for  an  allusion  to  the  fact  that  in  its 
own  interest  the  working  class  of  the  North  was 
bound  to  combat  with  all  its  might  the  superan- 
nuated system  of  production  by  slaves. 

The  first  German  labor  convention  which  met 
at  Philadelphia  in  1850  under  the  lead  of  Weit- 
ling passed  a  series  of  resolutions  of  a  political 
nature,  but  not  a  word  did  they  contain  against 
slavery,  not  a  plank  with  any  reference  to  the  one 
question  which  even  at  that  time  was  beginning 
to  inflame  the  public  mind,  and  in  regard  to  which, 
as  we  have  shown,  the  native  American  working- 


74     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

men  of  the  industrial  sections  of  the  North  had 
expressed  themselves  in  no  uncertain  tone. 

In  treating  of  Kriege  and  Weitling  we  must 
note  the  fact  that  both  joined  the  Democratic 
party.  The  former  did  so  from  demagogism,  the 
latter  from  conviction,  a  conviction  which  grew 
out  of  the  circumstances  that  the  opposition  party, 
the  Whigs  of  that  time,  contained  a  large  sprink- 
ling of  elements  hostile  to  labor,  and  especially 
out  of  the  further  circumstance  that  the  elements 
hostile  to  foreigners,  the  Know-nothings,  who 
rose  to  the  surface  in  the  beginning  and  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fifties,  exercised  great  influence  in  the 
councils  of  this  party.  It  must  be  ascribed  to  this 
circumstance  that  large  numbers  of  immigrant 
Germans  joined  the  Democrats,  the  opponents  of 
the  Whigs.  But  the  Democrats  stood  also  for  the 
maintenance  and  extension  of  Negro  slavery,  and 
their  German  following — including  the  German 
workingmen — in  their  ignorance  of  American 
conditions  and  their  confusion  in  economic  mat- 
ters, joined  in  the  Democratic  battle  cry  in  be- 
half of  slavery. 

Little  was  known,  moreover,  in  these  labor 
circles  concerning  the  economic  significance  of 
the  slavery  question.  They  betrayed  scant  intel- 
ligence in  dealing  with  it,  and  in  so  far  as  they 
discussed  it  at  all  they  did  so  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  political  party  which  they  favored 
and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  sentiments 


THE   GERMAN   WORKINGMEN  75 

which  governed  them.  And  the  radical  and 
progressive  workingmen,  like  their  English- 
speaking  brothers  in  New  England  and  New 
York,  scented  in  the  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question  a  peril  to  their  own  agitation,  the  aim 
of  which  was  the  emancipation  of  the  white 
workingmen,  the  wage  workers.  In  their  opin- 
ion, participation  in  the  anti-slavery  movement 
diverted  the  attention  of  the  German  working- 
men  from  their  own  struggles  and  caused  them, 
in  their  interest  in  what  was  considered  a  mat- 
ter of  secondary  importance,  to  forget  that  which 
was  of  prime  importance,  their  own  emancipa- 
tion. 

Under  the  controlling  influence  of  Joseph 
Weydemeyer,  a  friend  of  Karl  Marx,  the  Ar- 
beiterbund  (the  Workingmen's  League)  was 
founded  in  March,  1853.  The  Arbeiterbund, 
which  was  distinguished  from  the  labor  organiza- 
tions founded  by  Weitling  and  Kriege  by  a 
greater  defmiteness  of  aim,  originally  also  gave 
little  heed  if  any  to  the  question  of  slavery,  and 
its  platform  contained  no  plank  referring  to  it. 
But  when  the  question  became  a  burning  one  the 
Arbeiterbund  defined  its  position,  and  as  on  the 
labor  question  so  now  on  the  slavery  question  >t 
was  well  advised  by  its  counsellors.  In  a  mass 
meeting  called  by  the  Arbeiterbund  in  New  York 
on  March  1,  1854,  the  following  resolution  was 
adopted : 


76     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

"Whereas,  capitalism  and  land  speculation 
have  again  been  favored  at  the  expense  of  the 
mass  of  the  people  by  the  passage  of  the  Ne- 
braska Bill; 

"Whereas,  this  bill  withdraws  from  or  makes 
unavailable  in  a  future  homestead  bill  vast  tracts 
of  territory; 

"Whereas,  this  bill  authorizes  the  further  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  but  we  have,  do  now,  and  shall 
continue  to  protest  most  emphatically  against 
both  white  and  black  slavery; 

"Whereas,  finally,  we  desire  to  consider  and 
shape  our  own  welfare,  free  from  the  dictation 
of  lawmakers,  wire-pullers  and  the  hireling 
masses ; 

"Therefore,  be  it  resolved  that  we  solemnly 
protest  against  this  bill  and  brand  as  a  traitor 
against  the  people  and  their  welfare  every  one 
who  shall  lend  it  his  support." 

This  emphatic  declaration  against  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  it  ac- 
tually opened  the  entire  West  to  slavery.  The 
New  York  Staats-Zeitung,  Democratic  and  pro- 
slavery,  on  the  occasion  of  the  introduction  of 
this  bill  counselled  people  everywhere  to  abstain 
from  all  agitation  against  the  extension  of 
slavery,  and  thereby  incurred  the  lively  opposi- 
tion of  the  entire  liberal  German  population  of 
New  York.  The  passage  in  the  above  resolution 
of  the  Arbeiterbund  referring  to  traitors  against 


THE   GERMAN   WORKINGMEN  77 

the  people   and    their   welfare   presumably  was 
aimed  at  the  newspaper. 

With  the  advance  and  cumulative  intensity  of 
the  Abolitionist  agitation,  and  with  the  culminat- 
ing political  antagonisms  between  the  North  and 
the  South,  the  German  workingmen  gathered  in 
the  Arbeiterbund,  gave  increased  attention  to  the 
question  of  slavery,  and  a  large  number  of  them, 
the  clearer  headed,  ranged  themselves  uncompro- 
misingly on  the  side  of  the  Abolitionists,  Indi- 
vidual organizations,  such  as  the  Communist 
Club,  contributed  liberally  toward  spreading  the 
light  on  this  question,  and  they  were  so  down- 
right in  their  opposition  to  the  slaveholders  as  to 
call  any  of  their  members  promptly  to  account 
who  fell  under  the  slightest  suspicion  of  sympa- 
thizing with  the  South.  A  number  of  the  gym- 
nastic societies — the  Sodden  Turn-Vereine — 
also  strongly  opposed  slavery  and  embodied  in 
their  platforms  and  resolutions  planks  demanding 
its  abolition. 

Slavery  did  not,  however,  so  engross  the  at- 
tention of  the  organizations  of  German  work- 
ingmen at  this  period  as  to  crowd  out  all  other 
questions.  When  in  December,  1857,  the  Ar- 
beiterbund reorganized,  and  a  new  platform  was 
adopted,  slavery  was  not  even  mentioned  in  it. 
The  question  which  at  that  time  was  stirring  and 
agitating  other  people  everywhere  was  simply 
ignored.  And  when  in  April,  1858,  the  Soziale 


78     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

Republic  appeared  as  the  organ  of  the  Arbeiter- 
bund,  its  expressions  on  slavery  were  very  luke- 
warm. The  management  of  the  paper  held  that 
for  the  time  being  the  institution  of  Negro 
slavery  was  still  firmly  rooted  in  America.  We 
find  this  statement  in  the  first  issue  of  the  paper, 
April  24.  1858:  "The  question  of  the  present 
moment  is  not  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  the 
prevention  of  its  further  extension";  and  again: 
"At  this  moment  the  question  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery  is  still  remote." 

Although  the  policy  of  the  Soziale  Republik 
here  indicated  betrays  small  political  sagacity,  it 
shows  no  open  hostility  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  The  editors  of  the  paper  merely  be- 
lieved slavery  to  be  more  firmly  rooted  than  it 
really  was. 

But  matters  were  different  with  another  divi- 
sion of  the  German  workingmen's  organizations 
in  New  York.  This  division  was  not  very  power- 
ful and  was  of  but  short  duration.  It  had  seceded 
from  the  Arbeiterbund  in  1857,  and  was  under 
the  lead  of  a  certain  W.  Banque,  who  published 
in  New  York  a  German  labor  paper  entitled  Der 
Arbeiter.  It  had  further  framed  a  platform,  with 
these  planks : 

"Abolition  of  slavery  in  two  steps:    (a)  Abo 
lition  of  the  slave  trade;  (b)  introduction  of  the 
apprenticeship  system:  opening  up  of  the  con- 
tinents, civilizing  Africa    and    South    America 


THE    GERMAN   WORKINGMEN  79 

through  emancipated  slaves;  transplantation  of 
the  plantation  and  apprentice  system  to  Mexico 
and  Central  America  under  the  authority  of  the 
United  States." 

Tn  reality  these  planks  were  not  directed  against 
slavery  at  all.    But  popular  sentiment  against  the 
institution  of  slavery  had  become  so  powerful 
that  in  the  North  no  one  dared  openly  oppose  it 
any  longer,  and  could  do  so  only  indirectly  and 
by  qualified  expression.    As  against  the  plank  of 
the  Abolitionists  demanding  the  immediate  and 
complete  abolition  of  slavery,  which  was  becom- 
ing very  popular,  this  division  of  the  Arbeit  er- 
bund  and  the  editor  of  Der  Arbeiter  demanded 
merely  cessation  of  the  slave  trade  and  slave  cul- 
ture, and  for  the  rest  left  slavery  itself  untouched. 
In  a  series  of  articles  the  editor  dissuaded  Ger- 
man workingmen    from    joining  in  the  boycott 
declared  by  the  Abolitionists    against    Southern 
products.     They  were  told  that  they  could  not 
afford  to  do  it  because  they  could  not  live  with- 
out cotton,  the  chief  staple  of  the  Southern  plan- 
tations.   There  was  also  an  attempt  at  a  vindica- 
tion of  the  Southern  slaveholders,    by   extolling 
their  humanitarian  aspirations.      It   was   stated 
that  many  slaves  were  set  free  by  them,  provided 
with  money,  and  thus   enabled  to  settle  in  the 
free  States ;  also  that  some  were  sent  to  the  west 
coast  of  Africa,  to  Liberia,  to  live  in  freedom 
there.     In  regard  to  the  agitation  for  the  aboli- 


80     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

tion  of  slavery  the  editor  wrote:  "In  so  far  as 
the  agitation  aims  at  the  destruction  of  the  in- 
stitution as  a  whole,  threatening  at  the  same  time 
to  destroy  the  Southern  plantations,  it  fails  of  its 
full  effect,  because  men  even  of  the  Middle  and 
Northern  States,  for  the  best  of  reasons,  must 
declare  in  favor  of  the  unconditional  retention  of 
the  plantation." 

Banque  advocated  the  liberation  of  Negroes 
by  purchase  and  the  substitution  in  their  place  of 
"free  Chinamen,"  of  whom  there  was  an  excess 
and  who  would  supply  cheap  labor.  "The  free- 
dom of  the  Negroes  may  be  effected  by  means  of 
the  money  gained  from  the  sale  of  the  public 
lands." 

By  tjie  so-called  ' 'apprenticeship  system,"  of 
which  mention  is  made  in  the  platform  of  this 
division  of  the  Arbeiterbund,  the  Southern  Coast 
States,  whose  staples  were  cotton,  rice  and  sugar, 
were  to  be  empowered  to  exchange  those  of  their 
black  workingmen  who  "were  touched  by  civil- 
ization and  had  become  stubborn,  intractable  and 
insurrectionary,"  for  fresh  Africans  to  be  im- 
ported on  time  and  under  contract.  The  war- 
ships of  the  United  States  were  to  convey  the 
freed  workers  to  Africa,  where  they  were  to 
put  to  use  the  instruction  gained  in  America, 
plow,  sow  and  reap,  and  exchange  the  products 
of  the  new  soil  against  our  "labor  of  superior 
enjoyment."  It  was  further  demanded  that  this 


THE   GERMAN   WORKINGMEN  81 

"apprenticeship  system"  should  be  extended  also 
over  Mexico  and  Central  America  "under  the  au- 
thority of  the  United  States."  In  other  words, 
the  aim  was,  by  means  of  the  "apprenticeship 
system,"  to  conquer  for  the  United  States,  but 
mainly  in  the  interest  of  the  slaveholding  element, 
the  Spanish-American  countries  lying  south  of 
the  Union.  The  "apprenticeship  system,"  indeed, 
meant  nothing  else  than  an  extension  of  the  slave 
trade. 

It  was  charged  by  the  opponents  of  the  editor  of 
Der  Arbeiter  within  the  Arbeiterbund,  that  is,  by 
the  German  workingmen  opposed  to  slavery,  that 
Banque  was  subsidized  by  the  party  of  the  slave- 
holders and  that  a  daily  newspaper  subsequently 
founded  by  him  was  also  supported  by  them. 
Banque's  whole  conduct  in  regard  to  slavery 
lends  probability  to  this  accusation,  although  it 
need  not  be  assumed  that  he  was  directly  influ- 
enced by  the  slaveholders,  but  rather  by  the 
Democratic  party  of  the  North.  He  could,  how- 
ever, explain  and  in  a  measure  justify  his  con- 
duct by  pointing  to  the  original  platform  of  the 
Arbeiterbund,  which  was  silent  in  regard  to 
slavery,  and  consequently  left  him  free  to  treat 
the  question  in  accordance  with  his  own  judg- 
ment. 

The  editor  of  Der  Arbeiter  was  probably  the 
last  of  the  spokesmen  of  the  German  working- 
men  of  New  York  who  openly  advocated  Negro 


82     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

slavery — the  last  and,  with  the  exception  of  the 
eccentric  Kriege,  the  only  one.  Many  of  the 
others  failed  to  appreciate  the  full  significance  of 
the  solution  of  this  question,  but  none  ever  sank 
so  low  as  to  undertake  an  open  defence  of  the 
institution  and  of  the  Southern  slaveholders. 

After  the  Arbeit crbund  had  cast  off  Banque, 
mainly  on  account  of  his  friendly  attitude  toward 
slavery,  a  somewhat  firmer  tone  in  regard  to  this 
issue  began  to  prevail  in  the  organ  of  the  main 
body,  the  Soziale  Republik.  Only  gradually,  of 
course;  for  as  late  as  November,  1858,  it  warned 
its  readers  against  overlooking,  in  the  conflict  be- 
tween liberty  and  slavery,  "the  other  burning  is- 
sues of  the  day."  And  again :  "Not  only  years, 
but  more  likely  decades,  will  pass  before  this 
great  conflict  is  decided."  That  these  pessimis- 
tic expressions  of  the  Soziale  Republik  reflected 
the  dominant  sentiment  of  the  Arbeiterbund  is 
made  plain  by  the  conduct  of  the  society's  first 
convention  in  1859.  This  convention  adopted  the 
following  resolution  in  regard  to  slavery. 

"We  condemn  all  slavery,  in  whatever  form  it 
may  appear,  and  we  pledge  ourselves  to  combat 
it  with  all  the  means  at  our  disposal.  We  es- 
pecially demand  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law." 

In  principle  the  wording  of  this  resolution  was 
entirely  correct.  But  there  are  times  when  plac- 
ing the  emphasis  on  the  purely  theoretical  posi- 


THE   GERMAN    WORKINGMEN  83 

tion  amounts  to  an  impairment  of  this  position. 
This  was  the  case  here,  where  the  practical  de- 
mand of  the  immediate  abolition  of  slavery  would 
at  the  same  time  have  meant  a  more  emphatic 
avowal  of  the  theoretical  position  of  the  German 
workingmen. 

But  the  rapid  succession  of  events  and  the  de- 
fiant attitude  of  the  slave  barons  presently  led, 
to  a  pro  founder  insight  among  the  men  of  the 
Soziale  Republik  and  the  Arbeit erbund.  They 
roused  themselves  and  offered  a  more  stubborn 
opposition  to  slavery,  without,  however,  attain- 
ing to  a  full  theoretical  comprehension  of  the 
question.  It  was  especially  in  the  last  months 
of  its  existence,  under  the  editorship  of  J.  Rodel, 
that  the  Soziale  Republik  uncompromisingly 
championed  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  urged 
the  cause  in  the  circles  of  the  German  working- 
men.  And  when  the  crisis  came,  and  force  as- 
sumed the  direction  of  things,  a  large  portion  of 
the  German  workingmen  and  their  spokesmen 
obeyed  the  call  to  arms,  in  order  to  fight  on  the 
side  of  the  North,  and  against  the  slaveholders 
and  their  armies.  We  mention  among  the  better  , 
known:  Gustav  Struve,  Jos.  Weydemeyer,  F.* 
Annecke,  August  Willich,  Rudolph  Rosa,  Fritz^ 
Jacobi,  Dr.  Beust.  There  were  still  others  who 
so  distinguished  themselves  in  the  skirmishes  and 
battles  of  the  Civil  War  as  to  rise  to  high  rank, 


84     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

while  many  others  gave  their  lives  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  Negro. 

3.    THE  WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

The  population  of  the  Southern  States  previous 
to  the  Civil  War  was  composed  not  only  of  slave- 
holders and  slaves,  but  there  was  an  intermediate 
stratum  which,  in  the  controversies  of  that  period, 
was  not  mentioned  as  often  as  the  former,  though 
it  was  by  far  the  more  numerous.  This  stratum 
consisted  of  the  white  non-slaveholders. 

There  was  in  the  South  a  number  of  Christian 
sects  which,  from  religious  motives,  kept  no 
slaves  and  whose  adherents  either  did  their  own 
work  themselves  or  had  it  done  for  them  by  paid 
free  wage  workers.  The  number  of  free  white 
agricultural  laborers  in  the  South  alone  amounted 
to  a  million  in  1850.  There  was  also  a  consider- 
able number  of  independent  farmers,  who  for  one 
reason  or  another,  declined  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  slavery.  Added  to  these  were  the  mer- 
chants, clerks,  teachers  and  men  of  similar  call- 
ings. But  the  bulk  of  these  non-slaveholders 
among  the  white  population  of  the  South,  out- 
side of  the  agricultural  laborers,  was  formed  by 
mechanics,  artisans,  skilled  workers  and  the  nu- 
merous laborers  who  gained  their  livelihood  in 
the  most  various  enterprises  and  callings. 

Although,  as  we  have  said,  but  small  mention 
was  made  of  the  white  non-slaveholders  of  the 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    85 

South,  they  formed  the  most  numerous  part  oi 
the  population  there.  Of  a  total  population  of 
9,500,000  in  the  Southern  States  in  1850  the  ac- 
tual slaveholders  with  their  families  did  not  con- 
stitute quite  2,000,000,  and  these  claimed  3,500,- 
000  slaves  as  their  own.  The  remainder  of  the 
population,  about  4,250,000,  was  composed  of  the 
white  non-slaveholders,  the  great  majority  of 
whom  were  either  proletarians  or  the  "danger- 
ous class,"  the  scum  of  society. 

The  slaveholders  themselves  as  a  whole  did  not 
form  a  homogeneous  stratum.  At  the  apex  of 
the  pyramid  of  Southern  society  were  the  large 
landed  proprietors,  according  to  the  census  of 
1850  about  8,000  in  number,  each  with  fifty  or 
more  slaves.  They  were  followed  by  the  stratum, 
about  165,000  persons  in  1850,  who  owned  from 
five  to  fifty  Negro  slaves.  After  these  came  the 
lowest  stratum  of  the  slaveholders,  owning  from 
one  to  four  slaves  each.  In  1850  there  were  in 
the  South  68,820  persons  who  owned  one  slave 
each,  while  105,683  called  two,  three  and  four 
Negroes  their  own.  Altogether,  consequently, 
174,503  persons  belonged  to  this  lowest  order  of 
the  slaveholders,  who  were  not  rich  enough  to 
have  slaves  exclusively  working  for  them,  but 
who  were  obliged  to  do  part  of  their  work  them- 
selves.* 


*Denton  J.   Snider:     The  American   Ten   Years'   War. 
pp.  291-92. 


86     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

It  was  the  uppermost  stratum,  numbering  8,000 
persons,  who  exercised  political  domination  in  the 
South  and  who  determined  the  whole  course  of 
Southern  social  life.  In  1850  there  were  only 
two  persons  among  the  slaveholders  who  owned 
more  than  1,000  slaves.  Nine  owned  from  500 
to  1,000,  fifty-six  from  300  to  500,  and  187 
claimed  as  their  property  from  200  to  300  Ne- 
groes. These  few  persons  constituted  the  apex 
of  the  uppermost  stratum  of  the  oligarchy, 
whose  will  was  law  in  the  South.  Although  the 
smaller  slaveholders  were  connected  with  the  rul- 
ing oligarchy  of  the  upper  8,000  by  the  system 
of  slavery,  there  was  frequent  dissatisfaction 
among  them  with  the  ruling  policy,  in  consequence 
of  conflicting  interests.  But  notwithstanding 
their  numerical  inferiority,  the  large  landed  pro- 
prietors were  in  complete  control  of  the  political 
institutions  of  the  country.  Their  sway  was  ab- 
solute in  the  Legislatures.  They  systematically 
saw  to  it  that  the  poor  white  population  should  re- 
ceive no  public  school  education  and  deliberately 
kept  it  in  the  densest  ignorance.  They  acted  in- 
deed as  if  these  poor  whites  were  not  in  exist- 
ence at  all.  "The  non-slaveholding  whites  of  the 
South,"  observed  a  certain  George  M.  Weston, 
"being  not  less  than  seven-tenths  of  the  whole 
number  of  whites,  would  seem  to  be  entitled  to 
some  inquiry  into  their  actual  condition.  But,  for 
twenty  years,  I  do  not  recollect  ever  to  have  seen 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    87 

or  heard  these  non-slaveholding  whites  referred 
to  by  the  Southern  'gentlemen'  as  constituting 
any  part  of  what  they  call  'the  South.' ' 

The  terrible  ignorance  of  the  poor  whites  in 
the  South  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  come 
to  an  understanding  of  their  true  interests,  which 
would  have  ranged  them  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  landlords  and  slaveholders.  On  the  lowest 
plane  of  social  culture  were  those  among  them 
who  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  large  plan- 
tations occupied  impoverished  and  abandoned 
rural  holdings,  and  who  gained  their  meagre  sub- 
sistence by  hunting  and  fishing,  by  forbidden 
trading  with  Negroes,  and  by  all  kinds  of  dirty 
service  for  the  slaveowners.  They  were  ever  the 
most  willing  tools  in  the  hands  of  the  Southern 
oligarchy,  they  hunted  its  slaves,  and  during  the 
Civil  War  fought  its  battles  despite  the  fact  that 
this  oligarchy  had  sinned  against  the  ignorant 
whites  of  the  South  still  more  even  than  against 
the  Negro  slaves. 

An  American  historian,  speaking  of  the  atti- 
tude maintained  by  the  large  slaveholders  as 
against  the  poor  whites  of  their  States,  observes : 

"How  is  the  society  of  which  they  are  members 
fulfilling  its  responsibility  toward  them?  The 
record  is  universally  admitted  to  be  bad,  in  fact, 
it  is  the  worst  count  in  the  indictment  against  the 
Southern  oligarchy,  worse  than  the  count  against 


88     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

them  on  the  subject  of  black  slavery,  though  this 
must  be  regarded  as  the  first  cause  of  the  evil."* 
The  fact  is  that  the  ruling  slaveholders  were 
under  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  mass  of  the 
population,  including  the  poor  whites,  in  ignor- 
ance and  of  denying  them  all  schooling.  Only 
25  per  cent,  of  the  latter  could  read  and  write. 
The  education  of  these  masses  would  have  en- 
dangered the  dominion,  would  have  threatened 
the  existence,  of  the  slaveholders  as  the  ruling 
class.  In  the  United  States  Senate  the  statement 
was  made  in  1858  that  "200,000  men  with  white 
skin  in  South  Carolina  are  now  degraded  and 
despised  by  30,000  slaveholders." 

The  ignorance,  and  in  its  wake  the  crimes  ana 
the  poverty  of  the  "white  trash,"  as  the  poor 
whites  were  called  by  their  brothers  who  were  in 
the  possession  of  wealth  and  power,  became  so 
alarming  that  even  members  of  the  ruling  class 
itself  petitioned  for  their  relief. 

"In  December,  1855,  Governor  Adams  of 
South  Carolina  urges  almost  frantically:  'Make 
at  least  this  effort' — the  appointment  of  a  State 
Superintendent  of  Education — 'and  if  the  poor 
of  the  land  are  hopelessly  doomed  to  ignorance, 
poverty  and  crime' — which  he  seemed  to  think, 
'you  will  at  least  feel  conscious  of  having  done 

*  Snider,    p.  306. 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    89 

your  duty,  and  the  public  anxiety  on  the  subject 
will  be  quieted/  "* 

This  contrast  between  the  rich  landlords  and 
the  "white  trash"  had  always  existed.  "The 
people  of  Carolina  consist  of  two  classes,  the  rich 
and  the  poor,"  as  already  General  Marion  of 
Revolutionary  War  fame  had  observed.  "The 
poor  in  general  are  very  poor,  since  they  are  not 
employed  by  the  rich  who  do  not  need  them, 
having  slaves  to  work  for  them.  Thus  deprived 
of  the  support  of  the  rich,  they  remain  poor  and 
oppressed.  They  rarely  have  any  money,  and  the 
little  that  comes  their  way  they  spend  for  brandy 
to  cheer  their  spirits;  not  for  newspapers  and 
books  to  instruct  their  minds." 

As  then,  so  now ;  as  at  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  so  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War;  as 
in  the  Carolinas,  so  in  the  other  slave  states.  A 
born  Southerner  who  had  lived  a  number  of 
years  in  South  Carolina  and  who  had  travelled  ex- 
tensively through  Latin  America,  placed  the  poor 
whites  of  the  States  named  even  below  the  Span- 
ish-Indian half  breeds,  known  as  Pintos,  and  de- 
clared that  he  had  never  found  the  latter  in  their 
most  abandoned  state  so  degraded,  so  feeble,  so 
indolent  and  so  bereft  of  all  purpose  in  life  as 
the  former. 

Besides  the  ignorance  of  the  poor  whites,  the 


*Olmstead:    Seabord  Slave  States,    pp.  505-6.     Snider, 
p.  307. 


90     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

slaveholders  had  still  another  support  of  their  do- 
minion in  the  social  bias  of  all  Southern  whites 
against  the  Negroes,  a  bias  which  the  ruling  class 
did  not  fail  carefully  to  cultivate.  A  "nigger," 
even  in  the  eyes  of  the  poor  whites,  was  not  a 
human  being,  and  to  be  placed  on  an  equality 
with  one  was  an  affront  that  could  not  be  ex- 
piated promptly  enough  in  blood.  This  bias  was 
reinforced  by  a  certain  economic  antagonism  in 
such  a  way  that  the  ruling  oligarchy  could  avail 
itself  of  it  as  a  lever  for  the  maintenance  and 
continuation  of  its  dominion.  It  was  enough  for 
the  large  landed  proprietors  to  tell  the  poor  whites 
that  it  was  the  aim  of  the  North  to  place  the 
Negroes  on  an  equality  with  the  whites,  to  range 
this  entire  ignorant  stratum  of  the  population, 
most  of  whom  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
against  the  North.  In  explanation  of  the  hatred 
which  the  poor  whites  of  the  South  harbored 
against  the  Negroes,  we  may  point  to  the  class 
antagonisms  which  developed  between  free  and 
unfree  labor  which  furnished  the  material  foun- 
dation of  this  hatred. 

Slave  labor  did  not  merely  degrade  the  dignity 
of  labor,  including  the  labor  of  the  free  work- 
ingman,  it  did  not  merely  make  labor  contemp- 
tible, it  also  depressed  the  wages  of  free  work- 
ingmen,  lowered  their  standard  of  life  and  of- 
fered the  labor  of  the  white  workingmen  such 
sharp  competition  that  they  could  not  meet  it. 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    91 

This  fact  was  frankly  conceded  by  representa- 
tives of  the  ruling  class  in  the  South,  as  when 
Governor  Cannon  of  Delaware  stated:  "Slave 
labor  is  uncompensated,  white  labor  is  compen- 
sated; when  the  two  are  brought  into  competi- 
tion, white  labor  is  crowded  out.  If  capital  owns 
its  labor,  the  avenues  to  honest  livelihood  are 
forever  closed  to  the  white." 

The  slaveowner  with  his  slave  labor  was  a 
competitor  of  the  free  workingman.  Originally 
the  slaves  were  employed  only  on  the  plantations 
and  as  domestic  servants.  But  later  they  were 
instructed  in  certain  trades,  they  became  me- 
chanics, especially  blacksmiths,  carpenters  and 
wagon-makers,  and  by  displacing  the  white  me- 
chanics they  became  of  especial  value  to  their 
masters.  Gradually  the  slaveholders  even  nego- 
tiated for  the  performance  of  mechanics'  work 
under  contract,  setting  their  slaves  to  do  it. 

Olmsted  relates  that  at  Austin,  the  capital  of 
Texas,  the  German  mechanics  complained  that 
when  labor  for  building  the  State  capitol  was 
given  out,  many  of  them  came  with  offers,  but 
were  underbid  by  the  owners  of  the  slave-me- 
chanics. But  wrhen  the  free  mechanics  had  left 
town,  in  search  of  employment  elsewhere,  the 
slaveowners  threw  up  their  contracts,  and,  hav- 
ing no  longer  any  opposition,  obtained  new  con- 
tracts at  advanced  prices. 

Charles  Nordhoff  states  that  he  was  told  by  a 


92     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

wealthy  Alabaman,  in  1860,  that  the  planters  in 
his  region  were  determined  to  discontinue  alto- 
gether the  employment  of  free  mechanics.  "On 
my  own  place,"  he  said,  "I  have  slave  carpenters, 
slave  blacksmiths,  and  slave  wheelwrights,  and 
thus  I  am  independent  of  free  mechanics."  And 
a  certain  Alfred  E.  Mathews  remarks:  "I  have 
seen  free  white  mechanics  obliged  to  stand  aside 
while  their  families  were  suffering  for  the  neces- 
saries of  life,  when  the  slave  mechanics,  owned 
by  rich  and  influential  men,  could  get  plenty  of 
work;  and  I  have  heard  these  same  white  me- 
chanics breathe  the  most  bitter  curses  against  the 
institution  of  slavery  and  the  slave  aristocracy."* 
As  soon  as  his  interests  came  into  play  the 
slaveholder  put  his  despised  "niggers"  even  above 
the  free  white  workingmen.  A  planter  of  Vir- 
ginia employed  a  gang  of  Irishmen  in  draining 
some  land.  And  why  did  he  use  free  labor  for 
this  kind  of  unskilled  work,  which  could  have 
been  performed  perhaps  cheaper  by  his  slaves? 
.  "It's  dangerous  work,  it's  unwholesome,  being 
malarious  ditches,"  he  said,  "and  a  negroe's  life 
is  too  valuable  to  be  risked  at  it.  LLajiegrojiies, 
JHs^ajcxMisj^rableJoss,  you  jcnow."  ....  "Slaves 
are,  on  the  soutfiwestern^steamboats,  employed  to 
do  the  lightest  and  least  dangerous  labor;  but 
Irish  and  German  free  workingmen  are  employed 

*  Charles    Nordhoff:     America   for   Free    Workingmen. 
1865,  p.  8. 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    93 

to  perform  the  exhausting  and  dangerous 
work."f 

The  development  of  industry  in  the  South  also 
furnished  an  occasion  to  the  slaveowners  for 
employing  their  slaves  in  competition  with  the 
white  workingmen.  As  early  as  the  fifties  the 
beginning  had  been  made  with  the  erection  of 
factories  in  which  slaves  onl^  were  employed_as 
operatives.,  The  wages  of  the  white  working- 
men,  so  far  as  they  were  employed,  were  terribly 
depressed  in  consequence  of  the  competition  of 
slave  labor  in  the  respective  branches.  While  in 
the  cotton  mills  of  Lowell,  Mass.,  in  1852,  work- 
ing men  received  80  cents  each  per  day  and 
women  2.00  per  week,  the  wages  of  free  work- 
ingmen in  Tennessee  in  the  same  line  amounted 
to  barely  50  cents  each  per  day  and  of  women 
$1.25  per  week. 

Even  at  these  starvation  wages  free  labor  was 
underbid  by  the  slaveholders.  Their  control  of 
the  labor  market  was  absolute,  since  in  any  case 
they  could  produce  more  cheaply  than  free  work- 
ingmen. "It  matters  nothing  to  him"  [the  slave- 
holder], says  Nordhoff,  "how  low  others  can 
produce  the  article ;  he  can  produce  it  lower  still, 
so  long  as  it  is  the  best  use  he  can  make  of  his 
labor,  and  as  long  as  that  labor  is  worth  keeping 
A  free  white  mechanic  is  at  the  mercy  of  his 


f  Nordhoff,  pp.  7-8. 


94     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

neighbor,  the  capitalist,  in  a  slave  state,  because, 
if  the  capitalist  does  not  like  his  price,  he  can  go 
and  buy  a  carpenter  and  sell  him  again  when  the 
work  is  done." 

But  despite  the  best  intentions  of  the  slave- 
holders, the  purely  industrial  employment  of 
slaves  made  small  progress.  An  industrial  popu- 
lation must  first  be  educated  and  developed.  But 
everything  smacking  of  popular  education,  as  al- 
ready observed,  was  intensely  offensive  to  the 
South,  even  the  education  necessary  for  making  a 
good  factory  operative.  The  greatest  dependence 
of  the  masses  presupposes  the  greatest  helpless- 
ness of  the  individuals  composing  them.  The 
Southern  slaveholders  were  as  well  aware  of  this 
as  was  the  Catholic  Church,  which  reared  its 
authority  on  the  same  fact.  It  was  therefore  in 
the  interest  of  the  slaveholders  to  maintain  their 
chattels  in  darkest  ignorance,  no  matter  how 
much  the  latter's  usefulness  might  suffer  in  other 
ways. 

There  was  another  factor  to  cross  the  calcula- 
tions of  the  slaveholders.  Modern  industry  gives 
to  workingmen  a  character  of  its  own  which  is 
incompatible  with  slavery  as  it  had  developed  in 
the  South.  Even  the  Negroes  who  were  em- 
ployed at  industrial  pursuits  were  touched  by  the 
spirit  which  transforms  submissive  and  patient 
agricultural  slaves  into  revolutionary  proletar- 
ians. That  great  conspiracy  of  slaves  which 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    95 

spread  dismay  over  the  entire  South  shortly  be- 
fore the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  had  its  origin 
not  on  the  plantations,  but  in  the  Curnberland 
IroaJVorks  of  JTennessee,~the  largesFlndustrial 
enterprise  carried  on  with  slave  labor  in  the 
South.  This  conspiracy  gave  the  slaveholders  a 
sense  of  the  danger  with  which  modern  industry 
was  threatening  them. 

Nevertheless,  the  mere  attempts  to  organize 
industry  on  the  basis  of  slave  labor  proved  an 
injury  to  the  Southern  free  workingmen,  princi- 
pally through  the  powerful  pressure  which  was 
thereby  exerted  on  their  wages  and  their  standard 
of  life.  And  that  the  modern,  the  industrial 
workingmen  were  necessarily  hostile  to  slavery 
was  instinctively  felt  by  the  slaveholders,  who 
promptly  reciprocated  this  hostility  with  their 
own  profoundest  hatred.  The  Standard,  an 
organ  of  the  slaveholders  in  Charleston,  declared 
in  1855 : 

"A  large  portion  of  the  mechanical  force  that 
migrate  to  the  South  are  a  curse  instead  of  a 
blessing;  they  are  generally  a  worthless,  unprin- 
cipled class,  enemies  to  our  peculiar  institution 
[slavery]  and  formidable  barriers  to  the  success 
of  our  native  mechanics  [slaves]." 

The  merchants  and  other  middle-class  men 
who  came  from  the  North  to  the  Southern  States 
were,  according  to  the  same  paper,  "better  quali- 
fied to  become  constituents  of  our  institution 


96     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

than  a  certain  class  of  our  native  born,  who  from 
want  of  capacity  are  perfect  drones  in  society, 
continually  carping  about  slave  competition. 
The  mechanics,  the  most  of  them,  are  pests  to 
society,  dangerous  among  the  slave  population, 
and  ever  ready  to  form  combinations  against  the 
interests  of  the  slaveholders." 

Evidently  the  slaveholders  saw  in  the  mechan- 
ics, the  socially  soundest  element  among  the 
white  non-slaveholders,  their  natural  enemy. 
They  took  good  care  not  to  invest  this  enemy 
with  political  weapons  by  means  of  which  he 
might  imperil  their  own  dominion.  The  free 
white  laborer  in  South  Carolina,  for  instance, 
could  vote,  but  not  for  one  of  his  own  class; 
only  a  slave-owner  could  serve  in  the  Legislature, 
only  a  slave-owner  could  be  governor;  and  the 
Legislature,  composed  exclusively  of  slave-own- 
ers, appointed  the  judges,  the  magistrates,  the 
senators  and  the  electors  for  President.  And  as 
in  South  Carolina,  so  approximately  in  the  other 
States  of  the  South. 

Thus  we  see  that  while  the  free  white  work- 
ingmen  apparently  participated  in  the  business 
of  the  State,  they  were  nevertheless  practically 
shorn  of  all  political  influence  by  the  crafty  sys- 
tem of  the  slaveholders.  Although  there  existed 
a  certain  class  hatred  against  the  slaveholding 
obligarchy,  and  although  the  non-slaveholders 
constituted  the  majority  of  the  white  population, 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    97 

it  was  impossible  to  unite  them  in  an  organized 
and  general  opposition  against  the  ruling  class,  li 
Their  economic  interests  would  have  forced  them  a 
into  a  union  with  the  black  slave  population  if  f 
it  had  not  been  prevented  by  racial  antagonism. 
But  also  for  other  reasons  this  stratum  of  so- 
ciety lacked  that  homogeneous  character  which 
might  have  led  to  the  formation  of  an  indepen- 
dent class  with  independent  and  conscious  aims. 
Racial  antagonism  made  of  the  non-slaveholders 
enemies  of  the  Negro;  class  antagonism  made 
of  them,  in  so  far  as  they  were  wage  workers, 
enemies  of  Negro  slavery.  The  terrible  ignor- 
ance in  which  they  were  artificially  kept  made  it 
impossible  for  their  class  interests  to  transform 
them  into  avowed  opponents  of  the  slaveholders. 
In  consequence  of  their  lack  of  insight  and  their 
race  prejudice,  they  despised  the  Negro  and  failed 
to  see  that  the  slaveholder  was  the  real  enemy  of 
their  class.  As  Nordhoff  says : 

"Is  it  strange  that  the  ignorant,  neglected,  de- 
spised free  white  workingman  of  the  slave  States 
hates  the  slave?  He  feels  that  the  slave  injures 
him  in  every  possible  way;  the  slave  robs  him 
of  work,  the  slave  deprives  him  of  bread  and 
clothing  for  his  children ;  the  slave  gets  the  easiest 
tasks,  the  free  laborer  the  hardest  and  most  dan- 
gerous; the  slave  steps  before  him  whenever  he 
looks  for  a  job,  and  has  the  preference  every- 
where, because  he  is  the  tool  of  a  capitalist  whose 


98     LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

influence  and  wealth  enable  him  to  grasp  for  his 
own  benefit  whatever  might  be  of  advantage  to 
the  free  mechanic  or  laborer/' 

Thus  the  white  workingman  of  the  South  saw 
things  through  the  spectacles  of  his  race  preju- 
dice, while  his  class  interest  should  have  told  him 
that  not  the  slaves,  but  the  slaveholders  were  his 
enemies.  Partly  indeed  he  felt  this  to  be  so,  and 
that  recognition  made  of  him  an  enemy  of 
slavery.  It  even  aroused  him  to  a  certain 
resistance,  manifested  in  two  ways,  passive  and 
active — in  a  very  considerable  emigration  from 
the  slave  States  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  in  the  attempts  to  improve  his  lot  by  means 
of  petition,  organization  and  the  press. 

There  was  for  years  a  continuous  stream  of 
emigrants  from  the  slave  States  of  the  South 
to  the  Northern  and  the  Middle  Western  States, 
and  it  was  of  course  exclusively  non-slaveholders 
who  fed  this  stream.  According  to  the  census 
of  1860,  399,700  Virginians  were  living  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  their  native  State.  From  Ten- 
nessee 344,765  persons  had  emigrated;  from 
North  Carolina,  272,606;  from  Maryland, 
137,258;  from  Delaware,  32,493;  from  Ken- 
tucky, 331,904.  It  is  of  course  true  that  not  all 
of  these  emigrants  sought  refuge  in  the  free 
States.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  majority  of 
them  had  gone  to  the  Middle  West,  where  free 
land  held  out  the  promise  to  them  of  a  life  as 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH    99 

farmers  and  where  there  was  no  competition  of 
Negroes  depressing  the  wages  of  mechanics  to 
the  lowest  level.  The  historian  Snider  is  of  the 
opinion  that  the  Southern  slave  States  sent  as 
many  settlers  to  the  West  as  did  the  Northeastern 
States.  And  it  was  the  social  system  based  on 
slavery  which  drove  those  large  numbers  of  emi- 
grants out  of  the  South. 

In  a  certain  sense  this  emigration  from  the 
Southern  States  was  a  blessing  to  the  ruling 
oligarchy  there.  It  diverted  the  rising  discon- 
tent of  the  non-slaveholders,  with  its  accompany- 
ing unrest,  and  took  from  the  scene  of  action  the 
ablest  and  most  energetic  portion  who  might  have 
served  as  leaders  of  their  class.*  The  "white 
trash/'  the  non-resisting,  ignorant,  enfeebled  and 
degraded  element  of  the  poor  whites,  remained 
behind,  incapable  of  any  opposition  against  the 
ruling  class. 

Certain  traces  of  a  spirit  of  self-assertion — 
and  this  leads  us  to  the  second  form  of  resistance 
of  the  poor  whites  of  the  South — had  manifested 
themselves  among  this  stratum  of  the  population 
for  several  decades.  As  early  as  1831  white 
mechanics  had  petitioned  the  Legislature  of  Vir- 
ginia to  abolish  the  competition  of  slave  mechan- 
ics. In  1853  the  free  mechanics  called  a  meet- 
ing at  Concord,  N.  C.,  in  which  they  voiced  the 


*  Snider,  p.   311. 


100         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

complaint  that  "wealthy  owners  of  slave  mechan- 
ics were  in  the  habit  of  underbidding  them  in 
contracts."  The  free  mechanic  who  had  inau- 
gurated and  directed  this  movement  of  the  white 
non-slaveholders  was  driven  from  the  place  by 
the  ruling  class. 

Of  greater  importance  than  these  examples  of 
a  feeble  opposition  of  the  white  non-slaveholding 
element  against  the  ruling  oligarchy  is  the  fol- 
lowing : 

In  1860,  that  is,  shortly  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War,  a  man  named  Robert  C.  Thar  in, 
of  Alabama,  undertook  to  inaugurate  a  general 
movement  among  the  white  non-slaveholders  of 
his  State  for  the  protection  of  their  interests 
against  the  ruling  class.  He  endeavored  to  set 
up  a  newspaper  called  the  Non-Slaveholder,  to 
urge  the  passage  of  a  law  forbidding  the  employ- 
ment of  slaves  except  in  agricultural  labor  and 
as  servants.  "He  thus  sought  to  protect  the  free 
mechanics  and  secure  them  employment.  For 
this  Mr.  Tharin  was  summarily  driven  from  the 
State."* 

In  a  controversy  with  a  representative  of  the 
slaveholders,  who  opposed  his  aspirations,  Mr. 
Tharin  wrote: 

"He  had  seen  the  rich  man's  negro  'come  in 
contact'  with  the  poor  white  blacksmith,  the  poor 


*  Nordhoff,  pp.  5  and  6. 


WHITE  WORKINGMEN  OF  THE  SOUTH  101 

white  bricklayer,  carpenter,  wheelwright  and 
agriculturist.  He  had  seen  the  preference  in- 
variably given  to  the  rich  man's  negro  in  all  such 
pursuits  and  trades;  like  me,  he  had  heard  the 
complaints  of  the  poor  white  mechanic  of  the 
South  against  the  very  negro  equality  the  rich 
planters  were  rapidly  bringing  about.  These 
things  he  had  heard  and  seen  in  Charleston,  New 
Orleans,  Mobile,  Montgomery,  and  Wetumpka. 

"Have  not  the  planters  for  years  condemned 
every  mechanic  in  the  South  to  negro  equality  ?  I 
never  envied  the  planters  of  Wetumpka,  or,  in- 
deed, of  any  part  of  the  South.  My  dislike  to 
them  arose  from  their  contemptible  meanness, 
their  utter  disregard  of  decency,  their  supercil- 
ious arrogance  and  their  daily  usurpations  of 
power  and  privileges  at  variance  with  my  right 
and  the  rights  of  my  class."* 

Such  language  the  slaveholders  could  not  toler- 
ate at  a  time  when  they  were  already  beginning 
to  prepare  for  the  war  in  which  the  very  element, 
the  poor  whites  of  their  States  whom  Tharin  was 
summoning  to  a  defence  of  their  own  interests, 
was  to  furnish  the  soldiers  who  were  to  fight  the 
battles  of  the  South  against  the  North.  Tharin's 
expulsion  from  his  native  State  was  consequently 
foredoomed.  An  independent  movement  of  the 
white  non-slaveholders  just  at  that  moment 

Nordhoff,   p.   6. 


102         LINCOLN,  TABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

would  have  nipped  in  the  bud  the  secession  of  the 
slaveholders. 

It  is  plain  that  the  majority  of  the  white  popu- 
lation of  the  South  had  no  interest  in  the  preser- 
vation of  slavery.  The  workingmen  and  mechan- 
ics of  this  stratum  of  the  population  hated  slavery 
because  it  was  the  cause  of  their  own  miserable 
social  condition,  because  it  depressed  their  stan- 
dard of  life  to  the  level  of  the  Negro  slaves,  and 
brought  about  that  "equality  with  the  Negroes" 
which  the  slaveholders  had  menacingly  repre- 
sented to  them  as  the  aim  of  the  North.  But  the 
hatred  of  these  white  workingmen  of  the  South 
was  neutralized  in  its  effect  by  the  prejudice  and 
race  hatred  which  they  entertained  for  their  black 
class  comrades,  the  Negroes.  When  hostilities 
between  the  North  and  the  South  began,  the 
slaveholders  organized  these  poor  whites  into 
armies  and  compelled  the  non-slaveholders  and 
enemies  of  slavery  to  be  shot  to  pieces  and  made 
into  cripples  on  the  battlefields  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  slavery.  For  during  the  years  of  the  war 
military  service  offered  the  easiest  and  often  the 
only  way  for  securing  the  means  of  subsistence; 
the  grand  ideas  which  ostensibly  actuate  soldiers 
have  in  reality  ever  received  but  scant  considera- 
tion at  their  hands. 


4.     THE    WORKINGMEN    OF    ENGLAND    AND 
NEGRO  SLAVERY. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  the  rise  of  the 
Abolitionist  movement  in  the  United  States,  anti- 
slavery  societies  were  formed  in  England  which 
entered  into  communication  with  the  American 
movement  and  often  joined  hands  with  it  for 
common  work.  At  the  very  time  when  the  Eng- 
lish middle  classes  were  preparing  to  subject  their 
own  workers  to  the  worst  conceivable  industrial 
slavery — one  needs  but  recall  the  conditions  pre- 
vailing among  the  factory  population  of  England 
in  the  thirties  and  forties — a  portion  of  these 
ruling  classes  began  to  preach  in  favor  of  the 
abolition  of  slavery. 

The  workingmen  of  England  had  ranged  them- 
selves against  slavery  from  the  start.  But  like 
their  class  comrades  in  the  United  States  they 
could  not  overlook  the  hypocrisy  of  the  ruling 
classes  in  condemning  Negro  slavery  abroad  and 
opposing  with  all  their  might  any  limitation  of 
white  slavery  at  home.  With  the  contemporary 
English  and  German  labor  press  of  the  United 
States,  the  labor  press  of  Great  Britain  also  de- 
nounced this  hypocrisy.  Everywhere  their  awak- 
ening class  consciousness  led  workingmen 
to  realize  that  while  the  abolition  of  Negro 
slavery  was  desirable,  they  must  not  forget  their 
own  slavery,  wage  slavery. 

Bronterre  O'Brien  represented  their  position  in 


104         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

a  specially  striking  manner  in  the  radical  labor 
papers  in  the  thirties,  in  the  Poor  Man's 
Guardian,  in  The  Destructive  and  others.  Among 
other  things  he  wrote : 

"When  one  listens  to  an  Abolitionist  one  might 
think  that  outside  of  the  blacks  there  was  no  slave 
under  British  rule If  these  scoundrels  en- 
tertained a  sincere  hatred  against  slavery  they 

would  begin  by  abolishing  it  at  home He 

who  sallies  forth  on  a  philanthropic  mission  in 
Jamaica  when  he  needs  only  to  go  to  Spitalfields 
(a  poor  section  in  London)  to  find  more  misery 
than  he  will  be  able  to  abolish,  is  either  a  thick- 
headed fool  or  a  heartless  fraud.  How  is  it  that 
we  never  hear  the  Buxtons  or  the  Wilberforces 
complain  about  slavery  here  at  home?  Listen, 
Buxton,  and  we  will  tell  you :  it  is  because  you 
know,  you  smooth-tongued  rogue,  that  English 
slavery  is  indispensable  for  'our  highly  civilized 
state.'  That  is  the  reason,  Buxton !  The  slavery 
of  millions  is  the  foundation  of  our  cannibalistic 
civilization.  Your  cannibalistic  institutions  are 
reared  on  this  foundation — just  because  the  mil- 
lions are  slaves,  you  and  your  kidney  prosper  so 
splendidly.  You  lose  nothing  by  freeing  the 
Negroes;  but  you  would  lose  a  great  deal  if  you 
\would  free  Englishmen." 

I  And  O'Brien  explains  the  last  statement  thus : 

"In  the  one  case   (that  is,  in  England)    the 

master  employs  and  supports  his  slave  only  when 


THE   WORKINGMEN   OF   ENGLAND      105 

he  needs  him;  in  the  other  he  supports  him 
whether  he  has  work  for  him  or  not Eman- 
cipation enables  the  master  to  get  more  labor 
and  to  pay  less  for  it.  Emancipation  frees  the 
slave  from  the  whip,  but  deprives  him  also  of 
his  food,  and  since  hungry  people  have  small 
respect  for  the  laws,  he  soon  discovers  that  while 
he  escapes  the  whip  he  stumbles  upon  the  tread- 
mill or  the  gallows."  , / 

Despite  this  glaring  exposure  of  the  hypocrisy 
which  was  really  back  of  the  whole  middle-class 
movement  in  behalf  of  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves,  the  workingmen  of  England  nevertheless 
demanded  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery,  only  in- 
sisting, like  their  American  class  comrades,  on  the 
equal  necessity  of  the  abolition  of  white  slavery. 
The  workingmen  took  an  active  part  in  the 
numerous  meetings  arranged  by  the  middle  class 
anti-slavery  societies  in  England  in  the  thirties 
and  forties  in  the  interest  of  their  cause.  The 
adoption  of  the  Reform  Bill  (1832)  had  put  the 
English  middle  class  into  political  power,  but  at 
the  same  time  had  set  in  striking  relief  the  an- 
tagonism existing  between  the  middle  class  and 
the  working  class,  and  inspired  the  latter  to  in- 
dependent action. 

In  June,  1836,  the  Working  Men's  Association, 
which  subsequently  played  an  important  part  as 
the  mother  organization  of  the  Chartist  move- 
ment, was  founded  in  London.  In  the  fall  of 


106    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

1837  the  English  press,  Tory  and  Whig  alike, 
teemed  with  inflammatory  attacks  against  the 
United  States,  whose  republican  institutions  were 
bitterly  assailed  and  ridiculed.  The  Working 
Men's  Association  resolved  to  combat  the  mis- 
chievous machinations  of  the  ruling  class.  The 
carpenter,  William  Lovett,  who  in  the  following 
year  outlined  the  "People's  Charter,"  those  six 
points  embodying  the  demands  of  the  working- 
men  which  gave  the  Chartist  movement  its  name, 
was  entrusted  by  the  Working  Men's  Association 
with  the  composition  of  a  manifesto  in  which  the 
inflammatory  attacks  of  the  middle-class  press 
were  to  be  answered  and  the  existing  prejudices 
neutralized  as  far  as  possible. 

The  manifesto  began  with  an  allusion  to  the 
spirit  of  fraternity  which  should  govern  work- 
ingmen  in  all  the  countries  of  the  world : 

"For,  as  the  subjugation  and  misery  of  our 
class  can  be  traced  to  our  ignorance  and  dissen- 
sions— as  the  knaves  and  hypocrites  of  the  world 
live  by  our  follies,  and  the  tyrants  of  the  world 
are  strong  because  we,  the  working  millions,  are 
divided — so  assuredly  will  the  mutual  instruc- 
tion and  united  exertions  of  our  class  in  all  coun- 
tries rapidly  advance  the  world's  emancipation." 

In  this  address  the  English  workingmen  called 
the  attention  of  the  working  classes  in  America  to 
the  fact  that  within  the  borders  of  their  country 
millions  of  human  beings  were  held  as  slaves, 


THE   WORKINGMEN   OF   ENGLAND      107 

because  their  skins  were  not  white,  but  black. 
The  part  of  the  manifesto  which  alluded  to  chat- 
tel slavery  was  as  follows : 

"With  no  disposition  either  to  question  your 
political  sincerity,  impugn  your  morality  or  to  up- 
braid you  for  vices  you  did  not  originate,  it  is 
with  feelings  of  regret,  brethren,  that  we  deem 
it  is  even  needed  to  enquire  of  men  who  for 
more  than  half  a  century  have  had  the  power  of 
government  in  their  hands,  why  the  last  and 
blackest  remnant  of  kingly  dominion  has  not  been 
uprooted  from  republican  America? 

"Why,  when  she  has  afforded  a  home  and  an 
asylum  for  the  destitute  and  oppressed  among  all 
nations,  should  oppression  in  her  own  land  be 
legalized,  and  bondage  tolerated?  Did  nature, 
when  she  cast  her  sunshine  o'er  the  earth,  and 
adapted  her  children  to  its  influence,  intend  that 
her  varied  tints  of  skin  should  be  the  criterion 
of  liberty?  And  shall  men,  whose  illustrious  an- 
cestors proclaimed  mankind  to  be  brothers  by 
nature,  make  an  exception  to  degrade  to  the  con- 
dition of  slaves,  human  beings  a  shade  darker 
than  themselves? 

"Surely  it  cannot  be  for  the  interest  of  the 
working  classes  that  these  prejudices  should  be 
fostered — this  degrading  traffic  be  maintained. 
No !  No !  It  must  be  for  those  who  shrink  from 
honest  industry,  and  who  would  equally  sacrifice, 
to  their  love  of  gain  and  mischievous  ambition, 


108    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

the  happiness  of  either  black  or  white.  We  en- 
tertain the  opinion,  friends,  that  those  who  seek 
to  consign  you  to  unremitting  toil,  to  fraudu- 
lently monopolize  your  lands,  to  cheat  you  in  the 
legislature,  to  swell  your  territory  by  injustice, 
and  to  keep  you  ignorant  and  divided,  are  the 
same  persons  who  are  the  perpetuators  and  ad- 
vocates of  slavery. 

"They  are  rich  and  powerful,  we  judge  from 
their  corruptive  influence;  for,  with  few  honest 
exceptions,  that  surest  guarantee  of  liberty,  the 
press,  is  diverted  to  their  purpose  and  subject  to 
their  power,  instead  of  performing  its  sacred  of- 
fice in  developing  truth,  and  in  extirpating  the 
errors  of  mankind  and — shame  to  their  sacred 
calling — there  are  preachers  and  teachers  and 
learned  men  among  you,  who  plead  eloquently 
against  the  foibles  of  the  poor,  but  shrink  from 
exposing  vice  in  high  stations — nay,  who  are  even 
the  owners  of  slaves,  and  the  abettors  and  ad- 
vocates of  slavery!" 

In  the  same  manifesto  the  English  working- 
men  expatiate  also  on  the  regrettable  fact  that 
the  workingmen  of  the  United  States  do  not  un- 
derstand the  democratic  principles  of  their  Char- 
ter of  Independence  to  that  extent  "which  it  be- 
comes you  to  understand  them."  Further,  in 
showing  what  the  working  class  of  England  was 
trying  to  do  for  the  betterment  of  its  "degrading 
condition,"  the  address  says: 


THE   WORKINGMEN   OF   ENGLAND      109 

"Seeing  the  result  of  our  ignorance  and  divi- 
sions, subjecting  us  to  be  tools  of  party,  the  slaves 
of  power,  and  the  victims  of  our  own  dissipations 
and  vices,  we  have  resolved  to  unite  and  mutually 
instruct  ourselves;  and,  as  a  means  to  that  end 
we  have  formed  ourselves  into  workingmen's  as- 
sociations  " 

".  .  .  .  And  we  would  respectfully  urge  you 
to  enquire  whether  similar  means  might  not  be 
more  advantageously  and  extensively  employed 
in  your  country."* 

That  the  Chartist  papers  in  the  forties  declared 
themselves  against  Negro  slavery  in  the  United 
States,  we  have  already  learned  from  the  con- 
troversy between  Feargus  O'Connor  of  the 
Northern  Star  in  Leeds  and  George  H.  Evans 
of  the  Working  Men's  Advocate  in  New  York, 
in  which,  from  a  historical  point  of  view,  the 
English  Chartist  leader  proved  himself  superior 
in  insight  and  clearness  of  conception  to  the 
American  National  Reformer.  The  remaining 
organs  of  the  English  Chartist  press  also  ranged 
themselves  bravely  against  slavery  in  America. 

In  1846  an  Anti-Slavery  League,  whose  mem- 
bership  was  composed  principally  of  English  radi- 
cal workingmen  and  whose  president  was  the 
Chartist  George  Thompson,  was  formed  in  Lon- 


*  William  Lovett :    Life  and  Struggles.     London,  1876, 
pp.  131-134. 


110    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

don.  Among  the  members  of  the  League  were 
also  William  Lovett  and  many  other  well-known 
followers  and  champions  of  the  Chartist  move- 
ment. This  association  was  formed  when  Wil- 
liam Lloyd  Garrison,  Frederick  Douglas,  and 
Henry  C.  Wright,  all  three  very  active  Abolition- 
ists, visited  England.  The  chief  object  of  their 
visit  was  to  impress  upon  religious  bodies  that 
slavery  was  a  heinous  sin  and  ought  to  be  abol- 
ished; and  also  to  urge  on  them  the  necessity 
of  withholding  fellowship  from  the  religious 
bodies  of  America  which  were  the  advocates  and 
abettors  of  slavery.  Among  other  religious 
bodies  in  England  and  Scotland  they  endeavored 
to  influence  the  Evangelical  Alliance,  but  were 
unsuccessful.  They  called  a  public  meeting  on 
the  subject  at  Exetor  Hall,  where  the  Christianity 
of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  was  exposed.  The 
Workingmen's  Anti-Slavery  League  condemned 
in  strong  terms  the  conduct  of  these  Christian 
bodies,  which,  for  the  sake  of  filthy  lucre,  and 
the  subscriptions  they  were  in  the  habit  of  re- 
ceiving from  the  religious  Christian  slaveholders 
of  America,  persisted  in  recognizing  them,  re- 
gardless of  the  millions  of  their  fellow-men  in 
slavery. 

The  Anti-Slavery  League  employed  and  paid 
Frederick  Douglas  for  a  time  as  an  agitator  for 
the  anti-slavery  cause,  and  he  and  the  president 
of  the  League,  George  Thompson,  made  extended 


THE   WORKINGMEN   OF   ENGLAND      111 

trips  throughout  the  land  and  called  forth  great 
sympathy  in  behalf  of  the  slaves.* 

As  we  see,  Garrison  and  his  Abolitionist 
friends  met  with  the  same  experience  in  their 
encounters  with  Christian  ministers  and  similar 
middle-class  elements  which  they  had  made  at 
the  beginning  of  their  agitation  in  New  England. 
They  found  themselves  opposed  by  enemies 
where  they  had  hoped  to  find  friends,  and  they 
found  friends  of  their  cause  among  the  working 
class  who  had  to  fight  slavery  within  their  own 
ranks. 

The  organized  workingmen  of  England  con- 
tinued their  resolute  opposition  to  slavery  also 
in  the  following  decade.  In  the  numerous  meet- 
ings called  by  the  anti-slavery  societies  it  was 
especially  the  workingmen  who  again  and  again 
protested  against  the  preservation  of  slavery. 
The  labor  organizations  also  frequently  took  a 
similar  position,  and  in  May,  1853,  George  Jacob 
Holyoake  sent  an  anti-slavery  address  from  the 
Democrats  of  England  to  the  Democrats  of  the 
United  States.  This  address  was  signed  by  about 
1,800  men,  all  prominent  among  the  workers  and 
their  organizations  in  England. 

More  emphatically  than  even  the  free  work- 
ingmen of  the  North  of  the  United  States,  both 
American  and  German,  did  the  workingmen  of 


*  Lovett,  p.  321. 


112         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

England  raise  their  voice  against  slavery  during 
the  whole  period  of  the  agitation.  Although,  or 
perhaps  because,  they  were  at  that  time  them- 
selves in  a  condition  which  can  be  truly  described 
as  white  slavery,  they  did  not  in  their  own  de- 
pendence forget  that  of  the  poor  blacks,  who, 
bound  to  the  soil  and  to  their  masters,  were  com- 
pelled to  bear  the  twofold  burden  of  the  op- 
pressed class  and  the  oppressed  race. 

We  shall  see  later  how  nobly  the  workingmen 
of  England  during  the  Civil  War  redeemed  the 
promise  of  their  attitude  in  the  anti-slavery 
movement.  The  narrative  dealing  with  this  at- 
titude covers  one  of  the  most  glorious  pages  in 
the  history  of  the  labor  movement. 


CHAPTER  III. 


FREE  LABOR  BEFORE  THE  SENATE  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES. 

The  relations  between  the  labor  question  and 
the  question  of  Negro  slavery,  and  the  economic 
antagonisms  necessarily  engendered  by  indus- 
trial development  between  free  workmen  and 
capitalists,  were  well  recognized  by  the  slave- 
holders, and  played  no  inconsiderable  part  in  the 
arguments  advanced  by  the  latter  in  defence  of 
slavery. 

The  awakening  class  consciousness,  as  it  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  early  years  of  the  organized 
labor  movement,  gave  workingmen  a  certain  cau- 
tion and  reserve  in  their  judgment  concerning 
slavery  and  Negro  emancipation.  This  caution 
and  reserve  were  the  more  pronounced  the  more 
forcibly  class  consciousness  made  itself  felt 
among  them. 

The  slaveholders  promptly  saw  and  recognized 
in  the  rising  labor  movement  the  enemy  which 
free  capital  was  nursing.  They  foresaw  the  in- 
evitable conflict  which  had  to  arise  between  work- 
ingmen and  capitalists  in  consequence  of  the  re- 
moval of  all  barriers  against  industry  based  on 


114         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

free  competition.  They  sought  to  exploit  for 
their  own  advantage  the  antagonism  between  free 
workingmen  and  capitalists  which  they  had  fore- 
seen. They  warned  the  anti-slavery  capitalists  of 
the  North  against  this  development  and  the  con- 
sequences which  it  would  have  for  them.  They 
saw  in  the  maintenance  of  slavery  the  true  solu- 
tion of  the  social  question  and  the  chief  defence 
against  the  social  dangers  raised  by  this  question 
and  the  movement  of  free  workingmen  in  gen- 
eral, and  they  appealed  to  the  industrial  capital- 
ists not  to  overlook  this  danger  in  their  cam- 
paign against  the  Negro  slavery  of  the  South. 

On  March  4,  1858,  James  H.  Hammond, 
United  States  Senator  from  South  Carolina  and 
one  of  the  most  rabid  champions  of  Negro 
slavery,  took  the  floor  of  the  Senate  in  reply  to 
a  speech  delivered  the  day  before  by  Senator 
Seward  of  New  York.  He  said,  among  other 
things : 

"The  Senator  from  New  York  said  yesterday 
that  the  whole  world  had  abolished  slavery.  Aye, 
the  name,  but  not  the  thing;  all  the  powers  of  the 
earth  cannot  abolish  it.  God  only  can  do  it  when 
he  repeals  the  fiat,  'the  poor  ye  always  have  with 
you*;  for  the  man  who  lives  by  daily  labor,  and 
scarcely  lives  at  that,  and  who  has  to  put  out  his 
labor  in  the  market  and  take  the  best  he  can  get 
for  it — in  short,  your  whole  hireling  class  of 
manual  laborers  and  'operatives,'  as  you  call  them, 


FREE  LABOR  BEFORE  THE  SENATE  115 

are  essentially  slaves.  The  difference  between  us 
is,  that  our  slaves  are  hired  for  life  and  well  com- 
pensated; there  is  no  starvation,  no  begging,  no 
want  of  employment  among  our  people,  and  not 
too  much  employment  either.  Yours  are  hired  by 
the  day,  not  cared  for,  and  scantily  compensated 
which  may  be  proved  in  the  most  painful  manner 
at  any  hour,  in  any  street,  in  any  of  your  large 
towns.  Why,  you  meet  more  beggars  in  one  day, 
in  any  single  street  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
than  you  would  meet  in  a  lifetime  in  the  whole 
South.  We  do  not  think  that  whites  should  be 
slaves,  either  by  law  or  necessity.  Our  slaves 
are  black,  of  another  and  inferior  race.  The 
status  in  which  we  have  placed  them  is  an  eleva- 
tion. They  are  elevated  from  a  condition  in 
which  God  first  created  them,  by  being  made  our 
slaves.  None  of  that  race  on  the  whole  face  of 
the  globe  can  be  compared  with  the  slaves  of  the 
South.  They  are  happy,  content,  unaspiring, 
and  utterly  incapable,  from  intellectual  weakness, 
ever  to  give  any  trouble  by  their  aspirations. 

"Your  slaves  are  white,  of  your  own  race :  you 
are  brothers  of  one  blood.  They  are  your  equals 
in  natural  endowment  of  intellect,  and  they  feel 
galled  by  their  degradation.  Our  slaves  do  not 
vote.  We  give  them  no  political  power.  Yours 
do  vote;  and  being  the  majority,  they  are  the  de- 
positaries of  all  your  political  power.  If  they 
knew  the  tremendous  secret,  that  the  ballot-box 


116         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

is  stronger  than  an  army  with  bayonets,  and  could 
combine,  where  would  you  be?  Your  society 
would  be  reconstructed,  your  government  over- 
thrown, your  property  divided,  not  as  they  have 
mistakenly  attempted  to  initiate  such  proceedings 
by  meetings  in  parks,  with  arms  in  their  hands, 
but  by  the  quiet  process  of  the  ballot-box.  You 
have  been  making  war  upon  us  to  our  very  hearth- 
stones. How  would  you  like  us  to  send  lecturers 
or  agitators  North,  to  teach  these  people  this,  to 
aid  and  assist  in  combining,  and  to  lead  them?"* 

Hammond's  description  of  the  idyllic  social 
conditions  in  the  South  had  no  foundation  in 
truth.  But  this  did  not  preclude  the  clever  Sen- 
ator of  South  Carolina  from  hitting  the  nail  on 
the  head  in  everything  relating  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  social  relations  between  capital  and 
workingmen  under  the  capitalistic  regime,  as  his- 
tory has  since  proved.  His  point  of  view  was 
purely  demagogical,  but  his  vision  of  the  future 
was  clearly  and  sharply  defined.  Not  only  the 
Northern  capitalists,  but  the  Northern  working- 
men,  might  have  learned  from  him,  and  as  far  as 
the  latter  are  concerned  they  might  well  heed  his 
words  even  to-day. 

Hammond's  speech  made  a  sensation.  It  is 
possible  that  the  party  of  the  slaveholders  at  least 
partially  made  good  its  threat  to  send  agitators  to 

*  Congressional  Globe.    U.  S.  Senate,    1858,  p.  962. 


FREE  LABOR  BEFORE  THE  SENATE  117 

the  North  to  teach  workingmen  there  the  doc- 
trines elucidated  by  Hammond.  In  various  labor 
papers  in  the  North  that  part  of  his  speech  which 
related  to  the  labor  question  and  to  the  antagon- 
ism existing  between  capital  and  labor  was  re- 
printed and  commented  upon  in  his  spirit.  The 
more  independent  the  movement  of  any  fraction 
or  nationality  or  trade  of  the  working  class  had 
become,  the  more  its  members  were  convinced 
of  the  correctness  of  the  arguments  of  the  Sen- 
ator from  South  Carolina.  These  workingmen 
already  knew  that  they  would  owe  the  improve- 
ment of  their  lot  and  their  deliverance  only  to  the 
incessant  struggle  against  capitalist  society.  But 
their  historical  sense  was  not  yet  sufficiently  de- 
veloped to  cause  them  to  understand  that  there 
could  be  no  solution  of  the  social  question,  no 
deliverance  of  "free  labor,"  nay,  not  even  a 
powerful  labor  movement  in  America,  without  a 
previous  solution  of  the  slavery  question.  This 
explains  that  approval  with  which  Hammond's 
speech  met  among  them  under  the  influence  of 
agitators  paid  by  the  slaveholders. 

The  sensation  which  Hammond's  speech  had 
made  in  the  public  forced  the  representatives  of 
the  North  in  the  Senate  to  reply  to  it.  The  task 
devolved  upon  Henry  Wilson,  one  of  the  Sen- 
ators from  Massachusetts,  who  replied  on  March 
20,  1858.  Hammond's  statements  relating  to  the 
social  conditions  in  the  South  had  been  the  weak- 


118         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

est  part  of  his  speech.  It  was  easy  for  the  Sen- 
ator from  Massachusetts  to  set  them  right.  "The 
Senator  tells  us/'  declared  Wilson,  "that  their 
slaves  are  well  compensated.  The  Senator  him- 
self stated,  that  a  field  hand  could  be  supported 
for  from  eighteen  to  nineteen  dollars  per  annum. 
Is  that  well  compensated?  There  is  not  a  poor- 
house  in  the  free  States,  where  there  would  not 
be  a  rebellion  in  three  days,  if  the  inmates  were 
compelled  to  subsist  on  the  quantity  of  food  the 
Senator  estimates  as  ample  'compensation'  for 
the  labor  of  a  slave  in  South  Carolina.  Wages 
in  the  North  are  100  per  cent,  higher  than  in  the 
South.  In  the  iron  mills  in  Massachusetts,  they 
paid  the  laborers  (1850)  $30  a  month;  in  South 
Carolina  the  workingmen  of  the  same  occupation 
received  but  $15." 

It  was  easy  to  convict  the  South  Carolina  Sen- 
ator of  misrepresenting  the  social  conditions  of 
the  South,  but  it  was  difficult  to  refute  his  state- 
ments concerning  capitalist  development  and  its 
consequences  for  free  workingmen.  And  the  fact 
is  that  his  opponent  from  Massachusetts,  in  his 
answer,  hardly  got  beyond  mere  phrases.  It  was 
evident  that  he  did  not  grasp  the  antagonism  ex- 
isting between  capital  and  labor,  which  Ham- 
mond had  depicted  so  clearly,  and  that  he  did 
not  see  the  impending  conflict  between  free  work- 
ingmen and  industrial  capitalists.  "The  Senator 
from  South  Carolina,"  explained  Wilson,  "ex- 


FREE  LABOR  BEFORE  THE  SENATE  119 

claims,  'the  man  who  lives  by  daily  labor,  your 
whole  class  of  manual  laborers,  are  essentially 
slaves/ — 'they  feel  galled  by  their  degradation!' 
What  sentiment  is  this  to  hear  uttered  in  the 
councils  of  this  democratic  Republic!  These 
words  brand  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  as 
'slaves.' 

"I,  too,  have  lived  by  daily  labor.  I,  too,  have 
been  a  'hireling  manual  laborer/  but  I  never  felt 
'galled  by  my  degradation/ 

"I  tell  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  that 
he  grossly  libels  the  hireling  class  of  manual  la- 
borers, when  he  declares,  that  they  are  'essentially 
slaves/  " 

And,  after  showing  the  real  condition  of  the 
South,  Wilson  continued : 

"The  laboring  men  of  the  free  States  have 
open  to  their  industry  all  the  avenues  of  agricul- 
ture, commerce,  manufactures  and  the  multi- 
farious mechanic  arts,  where  skilled  labor  is  de- 
manded, and  where  they  have  not  to  maintain, 
as  in  South  Carolina,  'a  feeble  and  ruinous  com- 
petition with  the  labor  of  slaves/ 

"Should  the  Senator  and  his  agitators  and  lec- 
turers come  to  Massachusetts,  to  teach  our  hire- 
ling class  of  manual  laborers  'the  secret  of  the 
ballot-box,'  they  would  reply :  'We  are  free  men ; 
we  are  the  peers  of  the  gifted  and  the  wealthy, 
we  know  the  tremendous  secret  of  the  ballot-box ; 
and  we  mould  and  fashion  these  institutions  that 


120         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

bless  and  adorn  our  proud  and  free  Common- 
wealth !"....  "Go  home,  say  to  your  privileged 
class,  which  you  vauntingly  say,  'leads  progress, 
civilization,  and  refinement/  that  it  is  the  opinion 
of  the  hireling  laborers  of  Massachusetts,  if  you 
have  no  sympathy  for  your  African  bondmen,  in 
whose  veins  flows  so  much  of  your  own  blood, 
you  should  at  least  sympathize  with  the  millions  of 
your  own  race,  whose  labor  you  have  dishonored 
and  degraded  by  slavery !  You  should  teach  your 
millions  of  poor  and  ignorant  white  men,  so  long 
oppressed  by  your  policy,  the  'tremendous  secret, 
that  the  ballot-box  is  stronger  than  an  army  with 
banners !'  You  should  combine  and  lead  them  to 
the  adoption  of  a  policy  which  shall  secure  their 
own  emancipation  from  a  degrading  thrall- 
dom!"* 

The  Senator  from  Massachusetts  did  not  know 
the  history  of  the  workingmen  in  his  own  State. 
Otherwise  he  would  have  known  that  notwith- 
standing all  their  hatred  of  the  system  of 
slavery  in  the  South  and  notwithstanding 
all  their  enthusiasm  for  the  emancipation 
of  the  Negroes,  the  workingmen  of  Massa- 
chusetts had  always,  when  they  met  in  organiza- 
tions, emphasized  the  fact  that  besides  the  aboli- 
tion of  Negro  slavery  they  also  demanded  the 
abolition  of  wage  slavery.  Otherwise  he  would 
have  known  that  industrial  workingmen,  as  soon 

*  Congressional  Globe.    U.  S.  Senate,  1858. 


FREE  LABOR  BEFORE  THE  SENATE  121 

as  they  begin  to  think  about  their  condition,  do 
not  at  all  feel  as  "free  men,  as  peers  of  the  gifted 
and  wealthy,"  but  that  they  are  conscious  of  liv- 
ing in  a  slavery  hardly  inferior  to  that  of  the 
Negroes  of  the  South,  and  that  they  wanted  de- 
liverance from  all  slavery,  the  chattel  slavery  of 
the  Negroes  and  the  wage  slavery  of  the  white 
workingmen. 

All  this  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  would 
have  known  had  he  been  familiar  with  the  his- 
tory  of  labor  in  his  own  State.  At  that  moment, 
of  course,  the  workingmen  of  Massachusetts  like 
those  of  the  North  in  general  were  condemned  to 
remain  silent.  The  terrible  crisis  of  1857  had 
destroyed  their  organizations,  so  far  as  there  had 
been  any,  and  annihilated  their  press,  what  there 
was  of  it.  And  in  March,  1858,  when  this  debate 
took  place  in  the  United  States  Senate,  the  labor 
movement  had  not  yet  recovered  from  the  blows 
it  had  received. 

Otherwise  workingmen  from  the  ranks  of  his 
own  State  might  have  told  the  Senator  from 
Massachusetts  that  he  knew  less  about  the  social 
conditions  of  their  class  than  did  the  Senator 
from  South  Carolina,  and  that  Senator  Ham- 
mond was  right  when  he  said  to  the  capitalists 
of  the  North,  "Your  whole  hireling  class  of 
manual  laborers  and  'operatives,5  as  you  call 
them,  are  essentially  slaves." 

That  this  was  the  opinion  of  the  advanced  por- 


122         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

tion  of  the  workingmen  of  his  State,  Senator 
Wilson  might  easily  have  learned  from  the  anti- 
slavery  press  of  Massachusetts,  the  press  of  his 
own  party.  Although  the  influence  of  the  real 
social  reformers  upon  the  working  class  of  the 
North  had  materially  diminished  in  the  fifties, 
and  the  necessity  of  abolishing  wage  slavery  was 
no  longer  emphasized  as  strongly  as  formerly,  a 
workingman  wrote  in  Garrison's  Liberator  in 
September,  1860,  shortly  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  Civil  War,  as  follows : 

"Let  us  deprecate  Southern  slavery  in  the 
depths  of  our  souls ;  but,  in  the  name  of  Heaven, 
don't  let  us  be  unmindful  of  this  other  form  of 
slavery,  equally  the  result  of  dire  selfishness, 
manifesting  itself  in  a  greater  degree  than  ever 
in  the  overtopping,  all-absorbing,  bargaining  and 
trading  spirit  of  this  age — the  one  accomplished 
by  man-stealing,  the  other  the  outbirth  of  a  false 
relation  existing  in  the  great  department  of 
labor."* 

The  feeling  that  they  were  not  free  men  was 
evidently  not  yet  extinct  in  the  working  class  of 
Massachusetts. 


*  Liberator,  Sept  14,  1860. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  OUTBREAK  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR  AND 
THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT. 

1.    GENERAL  CONDITION  OF  THE  LABOR  MOVE- 
MENT. 

The  economic  crisis  of  1857  had  struck  a 
severe  blow  at  the  feeble  beginnings  of  the  labor 
movement  in  the  United  States.  There  existed 
trade  organizations,  and  even  national  organiza- 
tions of  some  trades — for  example,  those  of  the 
printers  and  the  hatters — but  they  had  no  great 
influence,  and  they  were  unable  to  withstand  such 
blows  as  those  dealt  by  the  prevailing  crisis. 

The  weakness  of  the  American  trade-union 
movement  at  that  time  was  due  to  the  relatively 
insignificant  industrial  development  of  the  coun- 
try. Capitalist  industry  on  a  large  scale  existed 
really  only  in  three  of  the  New  England  States, 
in  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut. 
Industrial  workers,  in  the  present  sense,  were 
therefore  to  be  found  only  in  those  regions.  The 
farmers  made  up  the  bulk  of  the  population. 
Industrial  products  were  for  the  most  part  manu- 
factured in  the  manner  of  the  old  trades  by  handi- 
craftsmen. There  were  proportionately  few 


124    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

Americans  among  the  mechanics.  Owing  to  their 
knowledge  of  the  country  and  its  language  they 
could  more  easily  find  employment  in  agriculture, 
in  trading  and  in  commerce  than  in  the 
factory  and  the  workshop,  at  least  outside  of  the 
three  New  England  States  just  named.  Un- 
skilled labor  was  principally  supplied  by  Irish  im- 
migrants, while  the  mechanic  trades  were  sup- 
plied by  Germans.  The  trade  organizations  of 
-,  German  workingmen  consequently  formed  a 
much  more  important  part  of  the  general  labor 
movement  at  that  time  than  they  did  later.  In 
correspondence  with  the  industrial  development 
all  labor  organizations  of  the  time  reflected  some- 
what the  character  of  artisan  gilds.  These  trade 
unions,  where  they  continued  to  exist,  were  only 
gradually  transformed  into  organizations  of 
modern  industrial  workingmen. 

It  was  almost  two  years  before  the  labor  or- 
ganizations recovered  from  the  effects  of  the 
crisis  of  1857.  Then  they  showed  renewed  ac- 
tivity. Local  organizations,  both  German  and 
English,  were  formed  in  all  the  large  cities,  and 
national  trade  federations  came  into  existence. 
The  iron  and  steel  workers  took  the  initiative  by 
forming  a  national  federation  under  the  name 
"Sons  of  Vulcan."  In  March,  1859,  at  a  conven- 
tion in  Philadelphia,  the  machinists  and  black- 
smiths followed;  in  July,  in  the  same  city,  the 
iron  molders.  In  the  following  year,  in  1860, 


CONDITION  OF  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT  125 

there  were  already  twenty-six  trades  with  na- 
tional organizations.*  Of  these  national  trade 
organizations  which  were  formed  shortly  before 
the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  those  of  the  ma- 
chinists and  blacksmiths  and  those  of  the  iron 
molders  are  of  special  interest,  because  they  were 
under  the  influence  of  persons  who  subsequently 
played  an  important  part  in  the  labor  movement 
of  America. 

In  the  spring  of  1859  the  iron  molders  of  vari- 
ous cities  went  on  strike.  The  employers  refused 
to  agree  to  the  demands  of  their  workmen  and 
formed  for  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States  a  na- 
tional organization,  The  National  Founders' 
League.  This  employers'  organization  tried  to 
import  workingmen  from  foreign  countries  and 
thus  break  the  strike.  There  was  one  working- 
man  of  that  trade,  William  H.  Sylvis  of  Phila- 
delphia, who  saw  through  the  scheme  of  the  em- 
ployers and  resolved  to  work  against  them.  He 
attempted  to  unite  the  several  local  organizations 
of  the  trade  in  order  to  oppose  the  national  union 
of  the  employers  by  a  national  union  of  the  work- 
ingmen. In  consequence  of  his  efforts  the  Iron 
Holders'  Convention  met  in  Philadelphia  on  July 
5,  1859,  and  effected  a  strong  organization  of  the 
trade. 

The  convention  chose  a  committee  which  was 
to  draft  an  address  to  the  iron  molders  of  the 

Ely:    The  Labor  Movement.    1886,  p.  60. 


126         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

United  States.  This  address  was  written  by 
Sylvis.  It  is  of  interest  to-day  because  it  gives 
an  insight  into  the  conceptions  and  ideas  then 
current  in  the  American  labor  world.  Among 
other  things  it  said : 

"Wealth  is  power,  and  practical  experience 
teaches  us  that  it  is  a  power  but  too  often  used 
to  oppress  and  degrade  the  daily  laborer.  Year 
after  year  the  capital  of  the  country  becomes 
more  and  more  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a 
few,  and,  in  proportion  as  the  wealth  of  the  coun- 
try becomes  centralized,  its  power  increases,  and 
the  laboring  classes  are  impoverished.  It  there- 
fore becomes  us,  as  men  who  have  to  battle  with 
the  stern  realities  of  life,  to  look  this  matter  fair 
in  the  face ;  there  is  no  dodging  the  question ;  let 
every  man  give  it  a  fair,  full  and  candid  con- 
sideration, and  then  act  according  to  his  honest 
convictions.  What  position  are  we,  the  mechan- 
ics of  America,  to  hold  in  society?  Are  we  to 
receive  an  equivalent  for  our  labor  sufficient  to 
maintain  us  in  comparative  independence  and  re- 
spectability, to  procure  the  means  with  which  to 
educate  our  children,  and  qualify  them  to  play 
their  part  in  the  world's  drama;  or  must  we  be 
forced  to  bow  the  suppliant  knee  to  wealth,  and 
earn  by  unprofitable  toil  a  life  of  solace  to  con- 
firm the  very  chains  that  bind  us  to  our  doom?"* 


*  Life,  Speeches,  Labors  and  Essavs  <>f  Win.  H.  Syh>is, 
by  his  brother,  James  C.  Sylvis,  1872,  p.  31. 


CONDITION  OF  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT  127 

Emphasizing  the  fact  that  the  power  of  the 
workingmen  lies  in  organization,  Sylvis  urged 
his  colleagues  to  join  the  new  union. 

At  the  convention  of  his  national  union,  held 
at  Albany,  N.  Y.,  in  1860,  the  author  of  this  ad- 
dress, who  even  at  that  time  brought  out  clearly 
the  relation  of  the  workingmen  to  capital,  was 
appointed  a  leading  officer  in  the  organization, 
and  as  such  played  an  important  part  not  only  in 
his  union,  but  also  in  the  American  labor  move- 
ment in  general. 

Besides  the  national  union  of  the  iron  molders 
the  organizations  of  the  machinists  and  black- 
smiths and  of  the  shipwrights  were  at  that  period 
particularly  active.  Both  trades  were  even  then 
eagerly  discussing  the  eight-hour  day.  At  the  an- 
nual convention  of  the  former  a  demand  was 
made  for  an  eight-hour  day  legalized  by  Con- 
gress, and  the  shipwrights  in  some  localities  ob- 
tained their  eight-hour  day  merely  in  consequence 
of  their  strong  organization.  In  other  English- 
speaking  trade  unions  shortly  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War  there  was  considerable  activity, 
as  also  in  those  of  the  immigrant  German  work- 
ingmen. 

The  condition  of  the  few  independent  political 
labor  organizations,  which  were  German,  was 
less  encouraging.  The  anti-slavery  agitation  and 
the  impending  political  conflict  were  a  great  hin- 
drance to  them.  The  Arbeiterbund  (Working- 


128    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

men's  League)  of  New  York  was  more  deeply 
concerned  about  wage  slavery  than  about  chattel 
slavery,  and  the  same  thing  was  true  of  its  organ, 
the  Soziale  Republik.  In  St.  Louis  there  were 
German  workingmen's  organizations  which  were 
loosely  allied  with  the  Arbeiterbund,  and  there 
were  yet  others  in  Chicago.  Pupils  of  Karl  Marx 
still  exerted  some  influence  in  the  Lake  City; 
most  noted  among  these  was  Joseph  Weyde- 
meyer,  who  edited  a  workingmen's  paper, 
Stimme  des  Volkes,  which  was  published  by  the 
central  committee  of  the  German  workingmen's 
organizations.  The  Soziale  Republik  and  the 
Stimme  des  Volkes  were  discontinued  in  the 
course  of  the  year  1860.  The  impending  conflict 
between  the  slaveholding  South  and  the  "free 
labor"  North  crowded  out  all  other  questions, 
ind  for  the  time  being  made  impossible  any  poli- 
tical labor  movement,  although  the  trade  unions 
were  comparatively  active. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  labor  movement 
when  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  Fall 
of  1860  induced  the  Southern  States  to  secede 
from  the  Union  and  thus  inaugurate  the  Civil 
War. 

2.    THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  WORKINGMEN  TO- 
WARDS THE  WAR. 

The  outbreak  of  a  war  like  that  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  threatening  with  destruc- 


WORK1NGMEN   AND    WAR  129 

tion  the  very  foundations  of  the  Union,  was 
bound  to  react  most  profoundly  upon  the  indus- 
trial activity  of  the  people  and  concomitantly  also 
upon  the  labor  movement.  There  was  indeed  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  a  general  collapse  of  all 
industry,  and  the  labor  organizations  which  had 
prospered  since  the  close  of  the  year  1858  re- 
ceived a  severe  setback;  many  of  them  even  dis- 
appeared altogether  during  the  first  years  of  the 
war. 

The  attitude  of  the  workingmen  towards  the 
War  of  Secession  was  by  no  means  uniformly  the 
same.  At  the  beginning  the  question  of  slavery 
played  no  part;  it  gave  way  to  the  question  of 
the  preservation  of  the  Union,  whose  existence 
was  threatened  by  the  secession  of  the  Southern 
States.  Though  the  slavery  question  lay  at  the 
foundation  of  the  whole  secession  movement, 
the  politicians  at  Washington  did  their  best  to 
obscure  the  situation  by  causing  the  ensuing 
struggle  to  appear  not  as  a  struggle  against  the 
economic  institution  of  Negro  slavery,  but  as  a 
struggle  for  a  political  form,  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  And  as  a  struggle  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  the  Civil  War  was  at  the  out- 
set regarded  by  the  labor  organizations,  though 
it  cannot  be  said  that  they  hailed  it  with  general 
enthusiasm.  The  labor  organizations  of  the 
South,  such  as  had  at  that  time  come  into  ex- 
istence in  Baltimore  and  some  other  cities  of  the 


130    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

Southern  States,  were  not  at  all  in  favor  of  the 
struggle  of  their  States  against  the  Union,  and  it 
must  be  particularly  emphasized  that  they  were 
in  the  beginning  generally  in  favor  of  the  pre- 
servation of  the  Union  and  against  the  seces- 
sionist movement  of  the  ruling  class  of  their 
States. 

Some  influential  representatives  of  the  trade 
unions,  both  North  and  South,  endeavored  to  per- 
suade the  laboring  class  of  the  country  to  ex- 
ert their  influence  against  the  war.  One  of  the 
most  active  among  these  was  Sylvis.  A  confer- 
ence of  certain  members  of  the  Iron  Molders' 
Union  met  in  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  passed  reso- 
lutions to  the  effect  that  workingmen,  regardless 
of  their  political  party  affiliations,  were  convinced 
that  the  welfare  of  the  country  and  the  hopes 
of  the  future  reposed  upon  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.*  The  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
in  their  opinion,  furnished  no  grounds  for 
changing  the  existing  form  of  government. 

The  resolutions  passed  at  this  conference  of 
workingmen  in  a  Southern  State  further  urged 
the  workingmen  of  the  whole  country  to  arrange 
meetings  in  every  congressional  district  and 
there  demand  the  resignation  of  all  those  mem- 
bers of  Congress  at  Washington  whose  attitude 
was  inimical  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 
At  the  close  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  statement 

*  Sylvis,  p.  42. 


WORKINGMEN   AND   WAR  131 

that  the  mechanics  of  Kentucky  were  in  favor 
of  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  even  if  they  did 
not  consider  themselves  its  humble  subjects. 
They  knew  what  their  rights  were,  and  they  were 
determined  to  maintain  them  within  or  outside 
of  the  Union. 

Similar  meetings  were  held  elsewhere  in  the 
South,  as  well  as  in  the  North,  by  organized 
workingmen,  and  similar  declarations  were  made 
there,  all  these  movements  finally  culminating  in 
a  labor  convention  at  Philadelphia  on  February 
22,  1861.  The  call  for  this  convention  had  come 
from  Louisville. 

The  attendance  at  this  convention  was  not  so 
great  as  had  been  expected,  although  delegates 
from  many  States  were  present.  Sylvis  was  one 
of  the  most  active.  Uriah  S.  Stephens,  the  gar- 
ment cutter  who  subsequently  became  the  founder 
of  the  Order  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  was  also 
one  of  the  delegates.  It  was  resolved  to  appoint 
a  Committee  of  Thirty-four — one  for  each  of 
the  States  then  constituting  the  Union — with  the 
function  of  arranging  meetings  and  demonstra- 
tions in  the  spirit  of  the  callers  of  the  convention. 
The  proceedings  closed  with  a  large  parade  of 
workingmen  and  a  mass  meeting  in  which  the 
speakers  emphasized  the  fact  that  organized  la- 
bor was  willing  to  sink  political  differences  for 
the  sake  of  preserving  the  Union. 

Some  days  previous  to  the  convention,  on  Feb- 


132    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

ruary  12,  Sylvis  had  expressed  his  views  con- 
cerning its  tasks  in  a  communication  to  a  work- 
ingmen's  paper,  the  Mechanics'  Own  of  Phila- 
delphia. After  stating  that  the  coming  conven- 
tion was  to  be  a  workingmen's  convention,  he 
declared  that  "under  the  leadership  of  political 
demagogues  and  traitors  scattered  all  over  the 
l:<viid,  North  and  South,  East  and  West,  the  coun- 
try is  going  to  the  devil  as  fast  as  it  can.  And 
unless  the  masses  rise  up  in  their  might,  and 
teach  their  representatives  what  to  do,  the  good 
old  ship  will  go  to  pieces."  In  this  communica- 
tion he  urged  the  arrangement  of  meetings  in 
which  the  preservation  of  the  Union  was  to  be 
championed. 

The  Committee  of  Thirty-four,  which  tad 
been  appointed  by  the  convention  at  Philadelphia, 
continued  its  activity  after  the  close  of  the  pro- 
ceedings and  held  several  sessions.  In  a  letter 
of  March  23,  the  corresponding  secretary  of  the 
committee,  Sylvis,  expressed  himself  with  regard 
to  its  mission  as  follows : 

"The  business  of  this  committee  is  to  perfect 
and  perpetuate  an  organization  among  the  indus- 
trial classes  of  the  city  and  State,  for  the  purpose 
of  placing  in  positions  of  public  trust  men  of 
known  honesty  and  ability;  men  who  know  the 
real  wants  of  the  people,  and  who  will  repre- 
sent us  according  to  our  wishes;  men  who  have 
not  made  politics  a  trade;  men  who,  for  a  con- 


WORKINGMEN   AND   WAR  133 

sideration,  will  not  become  the  mere  tools  of  rot- 
ten corporations  and  aristocratic  monopolies ;  men 
who  will  devote  their  time  and  energies  to  the 
making  of  good  laws,  and  direct  their  adminis- 
tration in  such  a  way  as  will  best  subserve  the  in- 
terests of  the  whole  people."* 

Simultaneously  with  the  workingmen's  con- 
vention in  Philadelphia  a  mass  meeting  of  work- 
ingmen  was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  in  Boston, 
which  was  still  more  outspoken  in  its  condemna- 
tion of  the  war.  This  meeting  issued  an  "Address  • 
of  the  Workingmen  of  Massachusetts  to  their 
Brethren  Throughout  the  United  States,"  in 
which  occur  these  statements: 

'"'We  believe  the  chief  cause  of  the  break  in  the 
Union  to  have  been  that  the  people,  North  and 
South,  have  been  deceived  and  betrayed  by  poli- 
ticians and  office  seekersyf  .  .  . 

".  .  .  .  It  is  vain  for  'politicians  to  tell  us  that 
secession  is  illegal.  Several  States  have  seceded 
already;  and  if  the  citizens  of  those  States  are 
united  in  their  determination  to  leave  the  Union, 
no  laws  and  no  force  can  compel  them  to  remain. 

".  .  .  .  Since  coercion  is  unwise,  unjust  and 
impossible,  we  must  look  to  other  means  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Union,  and  we  believe  that 
those  means  are  in  the  power  of  the  people.  Be- 
tween the  people  of  the  States,  there  can  be  no 
misunderstanding  if  they  can  be  brought  together. 

*  Sylvis,  pp.  45-46. 


134    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

"We  believe  that  the  first  duty  of  the  people, 
South  and  North,  is  to  put  away  forever  those 
designing  politicians  who  have  deceived  the 
people  and  brought  the  danger  upon  the  country. 

"We  appeal  to  our  brethren  at  the  South  to 
deal  with  their  traitors  at  home,  the  sowers  of 
sedition,  who  endeavor  to  mislead  and  misrep- 
resent them. 

"We,  on  our  part,  will  do  our  best  here  at  the 
North  to  expose  and  to  put  down  forever  the 
mischief-makers  who  have  sown  discord  between 
the  States,  and  brought  our  country  to  the  verge 
of  civil  war." 

The  address  attacks  the  Abolitionists  most  vio- 
lently. Among  the  reasons  given  in  justifica- 
tion of  this  attack,  are  the  following : 

"Because  their  pretended  love  for  slaves  a 
thousand  miles  away  is  but  hypocrisy.  If  they 
loved  mankind,  and  would  prevent  sin  and  suf- 
fering and  wrong,  they  could  find  here  at  home 
objects  -more  than  sufficient  for  the  exercise  of 
all  their  assumed  virtues.  But  their  philanthropy 
is  mere  deception — their  affected  sympathy  is 
selfishness — and  their  feigned  love  for  the  slave, 
a  cloak  for  their  insidious  designs. 

"For  these,  and  for  many  other  reasons,  we  ap- 
peal to  all  good  citizens  at  the  North — Republicans 
and  Democrats,  Union  Men  and  Americans — to 
see  to  it,  that  henceforth  the  pest  of  Abolition 


WORKINGMEN   AND   WAR  135 

shall   under  no   disguise  be  tolerated   in  their 
councils. 

"But  to  the  Republicans  we  appeal  most  earn- 
estly, to  avow  their  open  hostility,  because  the 
Abolitionists  have,  *  for  their  own  purpose,  de- 
ceived the  South  and  taught  them  to  believe  that 
all  Republicans  are  Abolitionists. 

"Let  this  be  a  war  not  of  force,  but  of  opin- 
ion  " 

".  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  that  the  workingmen  care 
little  for  the  strife  of  political  parties  and  the  in- 
trigues of  office-seekers.  We  regard  them  with 
the  contempt  they  deserve.  We  are  weary  of 
this  question  of  slavery;  it  is  a  matter  which  does 
not  concern  us ;  and  we  wish  only  to  attend  to  our 
business,  and  leave  the  South  to  attend  to  their 
own  affairs,  without  any  interference  from  the 
North. 

".  .  .  .  The  workingmen  of  the  United  States 
have  other  duties  than  to  put  down  the  treason- 
able designs  of  the  Abolitionists.  It  is  in  our 
power  to  save  the  Union,  if  we  will  but  unite. 
Let  us  forget,  then,  forever  that  we  have  been 
Whigs  or  Democrats,  Republicans  or  Americans, 
or  Union  men,  and  let  the  symbols  and  platforms 
and  passions  and  prejudices  of  party  be  dis- 
carded, never  to  be  recalled 

".  .  .  .  Let  us  form  throughout  the  land  asso- 
ciations of  workingmen,  whose  only  platform 


136         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

shall  be,  Liberty  and  Union,  and  equal  rights  to 
all 

".  .  .  .  If  our  Southern  brethren  choose  to  re- 
turn to  the  Union,  we  will  give  them  a  sincere  r 
and  hearty  welcome,  and  endeavor  to  protect 
them  in  their  rights.  If  they  prefer  to  cast  their 
lot  with  us  no  longer,  we  will  bid  them  'go  in 
peace,'  and  we  will  endeavor  to  secure  to  our- 
selves the  blessings  of  liberty  and  independence 
in  our  own  government.  We  wish  no  Union  but 
a  Union  of  Friendship,  not  of  force;  no  associ- 
ates but  those  who  remain  with  us  of  their  own 
free  will."* 

It  is  probable  that  this  address  was  not  backed 
exclusively  by  the  workingmen  of  Boston,  but 
that  Democratic  political  influence  was  brought 
to  bear  in  its  composition,  as  the  violent  attack 
upon  the  Abolitionists  would  seem  to  indicate. 
The  Abolitionists  were  indeed  far  less  popular 
among  the  workingmen  of  Boston  than  among 
the  population  of  the  essentially  industrial  centres 
of  New  England.  Nevertheless  the  address  is  of 
interest  for  the  light  it  sheds  upon  the  attitude  of 
some  of  the  workingtnen  of  the  North  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war. 

The  address  of  the  Workingmen  of  Boston, 
as  well  as  the  activity  of  Sylvis  and  the  Commit- 
tee of  Thirty-four,  did  not  of  course  alter  the 
march  of  events.  The  working  class  of  the 

*  Liberator.    March,  18tH. 


WORKINGMEN   AND   WAR  137 

United  States  was  by  no  means  strongly  enough 
developed  to  make  any  impression  by  setting 
forth  its  class  interests.  And  even  if  the  work^ 
ingmen  had  been  better  organized,  if  their  move- 
ment had  been  more  powerfully  developed,  and 
if  they  had  constituted  a  more  vital  section  of 
society,  their  action  would  nevertheless  have 
proved  futile,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  en- 
tered upon  it  too  late.  The  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina had  seceded  from  the  Union  as  early  as  De- 
cember 30,  1860.  Five  other  States  had  followed 
its  example  in  the  next  month.  The  anti-slavery 
people  in  the  North  and  the  slaveholding  element 
in  the  South  were  alike  bent  on  war,  so  that  the^ 
pacific  efforts  of  the  poorly  organized  working- 
men  were  doomed  in  advance.  Calamity,  if  one 
may  speak  of  historically  necessary  struggles  as 
calamity,  had  to  take  its  course.  Already,  on 
April  12th,  the  Secessionists  had  fired  on  Fort 
Sumter,  in  Charleston  harbor.  The  War  of  the 
Rebellion,  which  was  to  lead  to  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  had  begun. 

3.     EFFECTS  OF  THE  WAR  ON  LABOR. 

The  first  thing  to  note  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  was  the  general  industrial  depression,  with 
its  accompanying  unemployment,  a  circumstance 
which  greatly  facilitated  the  organization  of  the 
Northern  army,  as  the  unemployed  willingly  en- 
listed in  the  ranks.  The  labor  organizations  suf- 


138         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

fered  from  the  prevailing  unemployment,  and 
partly  also  because  their  members  obeyed  the  call 
for  volunteers  in  such  great  numbers  as  to  leave 
them  with  a  greatly  depleted  membership.  Many 
trade-union  officials  and  labor  leaders  busied 
themselves  in  behalf  of  reinforcing  the  army  by 
recruiting  military  companies  from  their  organ- 
izations and  workshops  in  which  they  held  the 
leading  positions.  A  trade-union  in  Philadel- 
phia joined  the  army  in  a  body,  an  action  which 
was  recorded  by  the  following  remarks  in  the 
minutes  of  the  Union :  "It  having  been  resolved 
to  enlist  with  Uncle  Sam  for  the  war,  this  union 
stands  adjourned  until  either  the  Union  is  safe 
or  we  are  whipped."* 

The  enlistment  of  so  many  thousands  of  work- 
ingmen  in  the  army  was  of  course  accompanied 
by  a  corresponding  decrease  in  the  supply  of  la- 
bor. There  soon  was  no  army  of  unemployed. 
To  furnish  the  supplies  for  the  army  and  navy, 
equipment,  armament,  provisions,  clothing,  tents, 
transports  and  the  manifold  other  needs  of  a 
large  military  body,  made  vast  demands  on  pro- 
ductive labor.  The  requirements  of  the  army 
stimulated  prostrate  industry,  which  presently 
showed  renewed  activity  in  all  its  branches.  En- 
larged opportunity  of  employment  gave  the  work- 
ingmen  indeed  an  increase  in  wages,  but  hand 
in  hand  with  this  enlarged  opportunity  came  an- 

*  T.  V.  Powderly :   Thirty  Years  of  Labor,  p.  57. 


WORKINGMEN    AND    WAR  139 

other  economic  phenomenon  which  tended  to 
make  their  condition  worse.  War  was  expen- 
sive; it  ate  up  enormous  sums.  In  the  year  1861 
the  amount  of  money  which  the  Government  re- 
quired for  the  army  and  navy  was  $35,389,000; 
in  the  following  year  it  had  risen  to  $431,813,- 
000;  and  in  1865  it  had  mounted  to  $1,153,307,- 
000.  The  war  expenses  of  the  North  for  the  five 
years  of  the  war  (1861-1865)  totalled  $3,063,- 
180,000.*  This  colossal  sum  had  to  be  pro- 
cured. Debts  were  incurred;  recourse  was  had 
to  the  issue  of  paper  money.  But  the  result  of 
the  war  was  uncertain,  and  therefore  it  was  also 
uncertain  whether  the  government  issuing  this 
paper  money  would  ever  be  able  to  redeem  it  in 
gold  to  pay  its  debts.  Paper  money  was  depre- 
ciated. During  the  war  one  dollar  in  paper  was 
worth  only  from  forty  to  seventy  cents  in  gold. 
The  consequence  was  a  general  increase  in  the 
price  of  commodities  amounting  on  the  average 
to  75  per  cent.  In  some  cases  the  price  was 
tripled  in  the  years  between  1860  and  1866. 
Wages  were  of  course  paid  in  depreciated  paper 
money. 

This  movement  in  commodity  prices  resulting 
from  the  depreciation  of  paper  money  put  the 
American  workingmen  into  such  a  position  that 
in  spite  of  a  favorable  labor  market  they  were 


*  Katharine   Coman :    Industrial  History   of  the   United 
States,  p.  270. 


140    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

worse  off  than  before.  It  forced  them  into  a 
struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  their  standard  of 
life;  they  set  forth  new  demands;  their  failing 
organizations  began  to  revive,  and  new  ones  were 
formed.  The  war  rebuilt  what  it  had  previously 
destroyed.  The  labor  movement  once  more  be- 
came a  powerful  factor  in  public  life. 

Besides  the  struggle  of  the  workingmen  for 
the  maintenance  of  their  standard  of  life,  and 
besides  the  increased  demand  for  labor  during 
the  years  of  the  war,  there  was  still  another  fac- 
tor to  influence  favorably  the  revival  of  the  la- 
bor movement.  While  the  wage  worker,  in  spite 
of  a  favorable  labor  market,  was  compelled  to 
struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  the  prevailing 
standard  of  life,  the  middle  classes  of  the  North 
were  revelling  in  "orgies  of  profit."  Under  the 
fructifying  rain  of  millions  which  the  Govern- 
ment spent  in  liquidation  of  army  and  navy  con- 
tracts and  supplies,  industry  on  a  large  scale  be- 
gan to  develop  and  consolidate  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  Mass  production  of  the  articles  required 
by  the  army  resulted  in  transforming  all  work- 
shops into  factories.  The  various  concerns  were 
enormously  enlarged,  concentrating  the  working- 
men  in  large  numbers  in  individual  factories. 
About  this  time  hand  work  was  replaced  by  the 
use  of  machines  in  nearly  all  industries.  There 
was  an  accumulation  of  wealth  in  individual 
hands  hitherto  unheard  of.  Dishonest  manipu- 


WORKINGMEN   AND   WAR  141 

lations  of  army  contractors — we  need  recall  only 
the  clothing  manufactured  out  of  old  woolen 
"shoddy. "  and  footgear  similarly  produced — 
poured  millions  into  the  pockets  of  a  few 
"shoddy  aristocrats,"  as  did  also  the  fitting  out 
of  "blockade  runners"  which  carried  merchan- 
dise between  ports  declared  closed.  Legislation, 
and  especially  Congressional  legislation,  became 
k  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  middle  class  to  a 
greater  extent  than  had  ever  been  the  case  be- 
fore. Millions  of  acres  of  government  lands 
were  granted  to  railroad  companies  and  other 
monopolies.  Capitalism  gloried  in  unparalleled 
successes.  The  national  wealth  of  the  United 
States,  which  in  1860  had  been  $514  per  capita, 
had  risen  in  1870  to  $780,  despite  the  colossal 
destruction  of  property  in  consequence  of  the 
war,  from  which  the  Southern  States  were  the 
principal  sufferers.  It  was  especially  in  the  in- 
dustrial districts  of  New  England,  in  New  York, 
and  other  large  cities  of  the  Northeastern  States 
that  we  meet  with  these  vast  accumulations  of 
wealth.  In  the  Northern  Atlantic  States  the  na- 
tional wealth  amounted  to  $528  per  capita  in 
1860,  or  only  $14  above  the  average  of  the  whole 
country.  In  1870,  in  the  same  section,  it  had 
risen  to  $1,243  per  capita,  or  $463  above  the 
average.  Here  in  the  Northeastern  section  of 
the  country  the  foundation  was  laid,  during  the 


142         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

Civil  War,  for  the  money  power  of  the  United 
States. 

The  extraordinary  rapidity  with  which  the 
process  of  capitalist  consolidation  took  place  in 
the  hothouse  atmosphere  of  the  war  was  of  course 
accompanied  by  the  creation  at  the  same  pace  of 
the  soil  out  of  which  sprang  the  labor  movement. 
The  first  indication  of  this  was  seen  in  the  rise 
everywhere  of  local  trade  unions  and  their  subse- 
quent federation  into  national  organizations.  As 
early  as  1863  the  locomotive  engineers  formed 
an  organization  which  embraced  the  entire  coun- 
try, and  in  the  following  year  the  cigarmakers 
and  bricklayers  did  likewise.  At  the  close  of  the 
war  between  thirty  and  forty  trades  had  formed 
national  organizations  in  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  THE 
WORKING  CLASS. 

1.    THE  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  CIVIL 
WAR. 

Of  the  European  countries,  it  was  especially 
England  that  was  affected  by  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War.  As  we  have  seen,  England  was  con- 
nected with  the  Southern  States  by  a  bond  of 
common  interests.  Its  textile  industry,  which 
had  reached  its  highest  development  towards  the 
close  of  the  fifties,  needed  the  raw  cotton  of  the 
cultivation  of  which  the  Southern  States  pos- 
sessed a  monopoly.  The  latter,  owing  to  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery,  were  interested  in  the  impor- 
tation of  English  products  free  of  duty,  while 
the  young  manufacturing  industry  of  the  North 
favored  a  protective  policy  which  found  actual 
expression  in  the  national  tariff  laws.  It  was 
consequently  in  the  interest  of  the  English  middle 
class  that  the  Southern  States  should  form  an  in- 
dependent confederacy  with  tariff  regulations  of 
its  own  which  should  grant  England  undisturbed 
free  trade.  Under  such  an  arrangement  the 


144         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

South  could  supply  England  with  the  raw  cot- 
ton which  was  so  necessary  to  it,  and  English 
manufacturers  could  export  their  industrial  pro- 
ducts of  all  kinds  to  the  Southern  States,  free 
of  duty,  and  without  fear  of  competition.  Un- 
der the  pressure  of  these  interests  the  early  Abo- 
litionist impulses  of  the  ruling  class  in  England 
disappeared,  and  English  intervention  in  favor  of 
the  Southern  States  was  advocated  in  these 
circles. 

Besides  England,  France  also  was  interested  in 
the  events  taking  place  in  the  United  States. 
Textile  industry  was  of  course  far  less  developed 
in  the  Second  Empire  than  in  Great  Britain,  and 
cotton  did  not  play  as  important  a  role  in  French 
politics  as  in  English.  Nevertheless,  French  tex- 
tile workers  were  also  affected  by  the  scarcity 
of  cotton  and  suffered  severely  from  the  crisis 
produced  thereby.  But  although  their  distress 
was  due  to  the  War  of  Secession,  like  their  Eng- 
lish comrades  they  stood  by  the  Union  and  op- 
posed Negro  slavery,  and  by  no  means  shared 
their  ruler's  bias  in  favor  of  the  Southern  slave- 
holders. On  the  contrary,  they  took  a  very  de- 
cided stand  against  them. 

It  was,  however,  not  the  part  which  the  cot- 
ton famine  and  all  it  involved  played  in  France 
that  drove  the  French  Emperor  to  sympathize 
with  the  South.  Louis  Napoleon  was  filled  with 
the  lust  of  conquest  and  aggrandizement.  He 


ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  WAR  145 

had  designs  upon  Mexico  that  could  scarcely  be 
realized  if  the  United  States  remained  intact, 
and  for  this  reason  he  sided  with  the  Southern 
States.  He  would  gladly  have  made  the  attempt 
to  break  the  blockade  of  the  Southern  ports  pro- 
claimed by  the  Washington  Government,  and  he 
would  even  have  directly  intervened  in  favor  of 
the  South,  had  he  not  feared  thereby  to  involve 
France  in  conflicts  of  far-reaching  consequences. 
For  this  reason,  he  desired  the  co-operation  of 
England  in  this  enterprise,  and  he  did  his  best  to 
obtain  it. 

In  England  the  Government  was  far  more  de- 
pendent on  public  opinion  than  in  France.  If 
public  opinion  in  Great  Britain  had  really  de- 
manded the  recognition  of  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy, if  it  had  demanded  active  intervention 
in  its  favor,  the  Government  would  only  too  will- 
ingly have  obeyed  the  pressure.  But  in  the  face 
of  public  opinion  emphatically  opposed  to  all  in- 
tervention on  the  part  of  England  in  the  affairs 
of  America,  the  Government  dared  not  pursue 
a  contrary  course.  The  decision  consequently 
lay  with  England. 

Only  a  few  years  had  passed  since  England, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  visit  of  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  the  author  of  Uucle  Tom's  Cabin,  the 
book  which  graphically  described  the  sufferings 
of  Negro  slaves,  melted  in  sentimental  approval, 
especially  since  the  author  was  the  honored  guest 


146    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

in  the  most  exclusive  circles  of  the  English  no- 
bility. After  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  not 
a  trace  of  this  sentiment  remained  in  the  hearts 
of  the  English  middle  class.  "To-day  [1862] 
we  find  only  here  and  there  one  among  the  Eng- 
lishmen, who  does  not  fanatically  side  with  the 
slave  States,  and  that  one  probably  has  not  the 
courage  to  express  his  opinions."*  This  was  true 
as  far  as  the  ruling  classes  were  concerned,  and 
they  indeed  tried  their  best  to  persuade  the  Gov- 
ernment to  intervene  in  behalf  of  the  South. 
They  arranged  labor  demonstrations  and  meet- 
ings declaring  in  favor  of  the  South  and  of  open 
hostilities  against  the  North  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  that  these  sentiments  had  the  backing 
of  English  "public  opinion."  But  under  the  in- 
fluence of  persons,  many  of  whom  subsequently 
belonged  to  the  General  Council  of  the  Interna- 
tional Workingmen's  Association,  the  working- 
men  of  England  offered  the  most  determined  op- 
position to  the  attempt  of  forcing  them  into 
demonstrations  favoring  the  slaveholders.  Eng- 
lish workingmen  had  themselves  become  only  too 
well  acquainted  with  slavery  to  espouse  its  sup- 
port in  one  of  its  most  aggravated  forms. 

The  manufacturers  now  resorted  to  intimida- 
tion to  compel  the  workingmen  to  join  in  the 


*  Lothar  Bucher :  Die  Londoner  Industrieausstellung  von 
1862.  Berlin,  1863,  p.  155.  Bucher  evidently  considered 
only  the  ruling  class  as  "Englishmen." 


ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  WAR  147 

cry  for  war.  Starvation,  that  ever  ready  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  the  middle  class,  was  to  force 
the  workingmen  of  England  to  declare  for 
slavery  in  America  and  thereby  enable  the  Gov- 
ernment to  say  that  public  opinion  demanded  its 
hostile  intervention  in  behalf  of  the  South.  The 
Civil  War,  and  especially  the  blockade  of  the 
Southern  ports  by  Northern  forces,  had  created 
a  scarcity  of  cotton  in  England  which,  by  the 
way,  was  not  altogether  unwelcome  to  the  manu- 
facturers. For  there  had  been  an  overproduc- 
tion in  the  cotton  industry  of  England  in  1860. 
"Its  effects  were  still  felt  during  the  years  imme- 
diately following The  demand  for  labor 

had  in  consequence  already  been  decreased  here 
[in  Blackburn,  where  in  1860  there  were  30,000 
mechanical  looms],  months  before  the  effects  of 

the  cotton  blockade  made  themselves  felt 

The  stock  on  hand  [of  the  manufacturers]  of 
course  rose  in  price  as  long  as  it  lasted,  and  the 
alarming  depreciation  which  ordinarily  inevitably 
accompanies  such  crises  was  thus  avoided/'* 

A  temporary  closing  of  factories  thus  sent  up 
the  prices  of  the  accumulated  commodities,  a  situ- 
ation by  no  means  deprecated  by  the  cotton  lords, 
especially  since  they  cherished  the  hope  that 
starvation  would  speedily  cause  the  workingmen 
to  adopt  the  views  of  the  manufacturers  in  re- 


*  Report     on     Factories.      October,     1862,     pp.    28-29. 
Quoted  by  Karl  Marx:    Kapital,  III.,  1,  p.  106. 


148    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

gard  to  the  Civil  War  in  America.  So  the  tex- 
tile factories  in  the  north  of  England  were  shut 
down.  More  than  half  of  the  looms  and 
spindles  were  idle.  The  wages  of  the  spin- 
ners and  weavers  who  continued  to  be  employed 
were  artificially  and  forcibly  reduced  in  a  man- 
ner which  literally  led  to  starvation.  The  manu- 
facturers deliberately  increased  the  misery  into 
which  the  workingmen  had  been  thrown  by  the 
scarcity  of  cotton,  hoping  thus  to  drive  them  to 
despair  and  to  demand  the  Government's  inter- 
vention in  the  American  troubles.  For,  as  the 
middle-class  organs  declared,  the  intervention  of 
England  would  put  an  end  to  their  misery. 

And  this  misery  of  the  workingmen,  espe- 
cially in  the  textile  districts  of  Lancashire,  was 
indeed  alarming.  In  1863,  when  conditions  had 
already  somewhat  improved,  the  weekly  wages 
of  weavers  and  spinners  amounted  to  3s.  4d.  and 
5s.  Id.  Despite  this  low  rate,  these  wages  were 
still  further  reduced,  particularly  by  fines.  In 
1862  weavers'  wages  ranged  from  2s.  6d.  per 
week  up. 

"No  wonder  that,  in  some  parts  of  Lancashire, 
a  kind  of  famine  fever  broke  out.*  ....  But 
the  working-people  had  to  suffer  not  only  from 
the  experiments  of  the  manufacturers  inside  the 
mills,  and  of  the  municipalities  outside;  not  only 
from  reduced  wages  and  absence  of  work,  from 

*Marx:   Capital,  I.,  p.  283. 


ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  WAR  149 

want  and  from  charity,  and  from  the  eulogistic 
speeches  of  Lords  and  Commons.  Unfortunate 
females  who,  in  consequence  of  the  cotton  fam- 
ine, were  at  its  commencement  thrown  out  of  em- 
ployment, and  have  thereby  become  outcasts  of 
society,  and  now,  though  trade  has  revived  and 
work  is  plentiful,  continue  members  of  that  un- 
fortunate class,  and  are  likely  to  continue  so. 
There  are  also  in  the  borough  more  youthful 
prostitutes  than  I  have  known  for  the  last  25 
years."* 

The  workingmen  of  England  were  starving 
with  exemplary  patience.  They  saw  their 
daughters  drift  into  a  life  of  shame  while  hunger- 
typhus  decimated  their  own  ranks,  but  they  would 
not  yield  to  the  demands  of  the  brutal  factory 
lords.  Not  only  did  they  refuse  to  fall  into  line 
with  the  wishes  of  their  masters  and  declare 
themselves  in  favor  of  the  South,  but  on  the 
contrary  they  declared  themselves  as  distinctly 
against  such  a  policy.  The  workingmen  of  Eng- 
land never  had  better  leaders  than  at  this  period., 
and  on  these  leaders'  advice  they  espoused  the 
:ause  of  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery  and  pro- 
tested against  the  intervention  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  favor  of  the  South. 

Hardly  had  Lincoln,  after  more  than  a  year 
of  cautious  dealing  with  the  slavery  question, 


*  Report   on  Factories.     October  31,    1865.     Quoted  by 
Marx :    Capital,  I,  p.  283. 


150         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

intimated  that  the  War  of  Secession  might  be 
transformed  into  a  war  of  Negro  emancipation, 
than  the  workingmen  of  England,  in  hundreds 
of  public  meetings  all  over  the  country,  in  all 
industrial  sections  and  large  cities,  hailed  this 
move  with  enthusiasm  and  demanded  the  initia- 
tion of  energetic  measures  against  slavery  and 
the  slaveholders.  In  vain  were  the  sneers  with 
which  the  English  ruling  class  commented  on  the 
early  defeats  of  the  Union  army,  in  vain  was  the 
hypocritical  attitude  of  Gladstone  and  his  col- 
leagues in  the  Government  who  sought  to  dis- 
guise their  secret  desire  for  intervention  by  the 
declaration  that  the  Union  could  never  suppress 
the  Rebellion  and  that  the  Civil  War  meant  only 
useless  and  aimless  bloodshed.  Cheerfully,  even 
enthusiastically,  the  English  workingmen  bore 
starvation  and  misery,  and  protested  more  and 
more  loudly  against  Negro  slavery  and  against 
the  intervention  of  their  Government  in  favor  of 
the  Southern  rebels. 

In  the  north  of  the  country,  in  the  cotton 
districts,  where  the  manufacturers  attempted  to 
coerce  their  employees  by  starvation,  one  of  the 
active  agitators  in  favor  of  the  Union  was  Ernest 
Jones,  the  champion  and  poet  of  the  Chartist 
movement.  His  eloquence  was  irresistible,  and 
his  speeches  against  the  slaveholders  were  so 
impressive  that  the  towns  of  Ashton  and  Rock- 
dale  had  them  printed  and  circulated  at  their 


ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  WAR  151 

own  expense.  When  Jones,  before  a  crowded 
mass  meeting  at  Blackburn,  surrounded  by  the 
hostile  local  manufacturers  on  the  platform,  ex- 
claimed, "Why  did  the  South  secede?"  one  of 
the  latter  replied,  "For  free  trade,"  whereupon 
the  speaker  instantly  retorted,  "Free  trade  in 
what?  Free  trade  in  the  lash — free  trade  in 
the  branding  iron — free  trade  in  chains."* 

The  applause  which  broke  forth  from  the  as- 
sembled workingmen  need  not  be  described.  The 
glowing  eloquence  of  Jones  contributed  its  share 
in  inspiring  the  starving  textile  workers  of  Lan- 
cashire to  persist  in  their  position. 

Let  us  compare  now  with  the  heroism  of  the 
workingmen  of  England  the  contemptible  hy- 
pocrisy of  the  middle  class  and  its  leaders.  The 
same  Gladstone  who  declared  the  attempts  of 
the  North  to  suppress  the  rebellion  of  the  slave- 
holders to  be  futile,  and  who  only  waited  for  an 
opportunity  to  bring  about  an  intervention  of 
England  in  favor  of  the  Southern  States,  this 
same  Gladstone  declared  in  a  speech  that  the 
whole  history  of  the  Christian  church  could  not 
furnish  so  brilliant  an  example  of  Christian 
resignation  as  that  of  the  workingmen  of  Lan- 
cashire, f  Of  course,  this  "Christian  resignation" 
and  the  exemplary  patience  of  these  working- 
men  were  easily  explained.  Mr.  Gladstone  him- 


*  Frederick  Leary :   Ernest  Jones.   London,  1887,  p.  72. 
f  Bucher,  pp.  156-57. 


152         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

self  would  have  them,  had  they  become  impa- 
tient, imprisoned  and  shot  to  pieces  amid  the  ap- 
plause of  the  manufacturers,  who  were  respon- 
sijrie  for  all  the  misery. 

/  In  New  York  a  committee  was  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  collecting  money  for  the  starving 
spinners  and  weavers  in  the  north  of  England 
and  thus  alleviating  their  misery.  The  "suf- 
fering factory  workers"  of  Blackburn  addressed 
a  letter  to  this  comrriittee  and  "to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  United  States"  beseeching  them  to  furnish 
the  means  for  their  emigration  to  the  United 
States.  But  the  starving  workingmen  of  the 
north  of  England  were  of  far  greater  use  to  the 
Northern  capitalists  by  remaining  where  they 
were  and  continuing  to  starve  and  heroically  to 
protest  against  the  machinations  of  their  mas- 
ters than  by  coming  to  the  United  States.  So 
money  was  indeed  sent  to  relieve  their  immediate 
distress,  but  Brother  Jonathan  lent  a  deaf  ear  to 
their  entreaties  for  emigration  on  a  large  scale./ 
The  workingmen  of  England  could  count  even 
less  upon  the  encouragement  of  the  ruling  class 
of  their  own  country  in  their  plans  for  emigra- 
tion. The  great  mass  of  the  textile  workers  was 
indeed  without  employment  at  the  time,  but  the 
manufacturers  desired  to  retain  the  skilled  la- 
borers until  they  should  need  them  again.  On 
March  24,  1863,  a  manufacturer  declared  in  the 
London  Times: 


ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  WAR  153 

"Encourage  or  allow  the  working-power  to 
emigrate,  and  what  of  the  capitalists?  ....  Take 
away  the  cream  of  the  workers,  and  fixed  capital 
will  depreciate  in  a  great  degree,  and  the  floating 
will  not  subject  itself  to  a  struggle  with  the  short 

supply  of  inferior  labor We  are  told  the 

workers  wish  it  [emigration].     Very  natural  it 

is  that  they  should  do  so Reduce,  compress 

the  cotton  trade  by  taking  away  its  working- 
power  and  reducing  their  wages  expenditure,  say 
one  fifth,  or  five  millions,  and  what  then  would 
happen  to  the  class  above,  the  small  store-keepers, 
and  what  of  the  rents — the  cottage  rents?  .  .  .  . 
Trace  out  the  effects  upward  to  the  small  farmer, 
the  better  householder,  and  ....  the  land-owner, 
and  say  if  there  could  be  any  suggestion  more 
suicidal,  to  all  classes  of  the  country,  than  by  en- 
feebling a  nation  by  exporting  the  best  of  its 
manufacturing  population,  and  destroying  the 
value  of  some  of  its  most  productive  capital  and 
enrichment  "* 

The  manufacturers'  cry  of  despair  found  will- 
ing ears.  The  emigration  of  the  workingmen 
was  prevented.  "Parliament  did  not  vote  a  single 
farthing  in  aid  of  emigration,  but  simply  passed 
some  acts  empowering  the  municipal  corpora- 
tions to  keep  the  operatives  in  a  half-starved  state 

Marx :   Capital,  I.,  pp.  362-363. 


154         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

— i.  e.,   to   exploit  them  at  less  than  the  normal 
wages."  * 

The  municipalities  ordered  public  works.  The 
unemployed  were  set  to  work  on  drainage,  roads, 
stone  cutting,  paving,  etc.,  and  drew  relief  from 
the  local  authorities.  This  action  virtually 
amounted  to  a  relief  of  the  manufacturers,  whose 
skilled  hands  were  kept  in  the  country.  Thus 
"the  manufacturer,  in  secret  understanding  with 
the  Government,  prevented  emigration  as  far  as 
possible,  partly  in  order  to  have  instantly  avail- 
able their  capital  which  consisted  in  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  these  workmen,  and  partly  in  order  to 
be  sure  of  the  rent  which  these  workmen  paid 
them."t 

Many  of  the  manufacturers  owned  the  houses 
in  which  the  workingmen  employed  by  them  were 
living.  Rent  could  not  be  paid  during  the  time 
there  was  no  work.  The  unpaid  rent  would  have 
been  a  pure  loss  if  the  workingmen  had  succeeded 
in  realizing  their  plan  for  emigration.  Another 
reason  which  induced  the  manufacturers  to  op- 
pose the  scheme  with  all  the  means  at  their  dis- 
posal was  the  fact  that  it  offered  the  workingmen 
an  opportunity  of  escape  from  their  wretched 
conditions. 

^The  heroic  attitude  of  the  textile  workers  of 
England  during  the  Civil  War  in  America  con- 

*  Marx :   Capital,  L,  p.  364. 
fMarx:  Kapital,  III.,  I.,  pp.  111-115. 


ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  AND  THE  WAR  155 

stitutes  one  of  the  most  glorious  ,pages  in  the 
history  of  the  working  class  and  must  therefore 
be  emphasized  here.  They  suffered,  starved  and 
even  died  for  the  cause  of  Negro  emancipation  in 
America.  And  yet  a  little  less  patience  would 
in  this  case  have  made  the  workingmen  even  more 
heroic.  But  the  spirit  of  the  Chartists  had 
passed,  and  the  workingmen  of  England  were 
now  great  only  in  passive  resistance.  The  per- 
fidy of  the  ruling  class  never  challenged  instant 
active  resistance  more  than  did  the  conduct  of 
the  English  manufacturers  and  the  English  gov- 
ernment at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War. 


meetngs  protestng  aganst  a  war  n 
favor  of  the  Southern  States  had  in  the  meantime 
been  continued.  It  was  especially  during  the 
late  winter  of  1862  and  of  1863  that  one  such 
meeting  followed  another.  Above  all  others  the 
workingmen  of  London  began  to  be  aroused. 
The  trade  unions  of  the  metropolis  called  a  meet- 
ing at  St.  James  Hall  for  March  26th  which  was 
of  special  importance,  and  the  declarations  of 
which  were  recognized  as  the  expression  of  Eng- 
lish working  class  opinion.  At  this  meeting  a 
prominent  part  was  played  by  W.  R.  Cremer, 
then  a  cabinet-maker,  subsequently  a  member  of 
the  General  Council  of  the  International  Work- 
ingmen's  Association,  and  still  later  one  of  the 
champions  of  the  international  peace  movement. 
John  Bright  was  in  the  chair,  and  among  the 


156    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

speakers  were  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Prof.  E.  S. 
Beesly.  In  an  address  to  Abraham  Lincoln  which 
was  drawn  up  by  this  monster  meeting  this  pas- 
sage occurs: 

"Though  we  have  felt  proud  of  our  country 
....  yet  have  we  ever  turned  with  glowing  ad- 
miration to  your  great  Republic,  where  a  higher 
political  and  social  freedom  has  been  estab- 
lished." 

And  John  Bright  declared: 

"I  am  persuaded  ....  that  the  more  perfect 
the  friendship  that  is  established  between  the 
people  of  England  and  the  free  people  of  Amer- 
ica, the  more  you  will  find  your  path  of  progress 
here  made  easy  for  you,  and  the  more  will  so- 
cial and  political  liberty  advance  among  us."* 

Lord  Palmerston,  then  at  the  head  of  the  Eng- 
lish Government,  was  about  to  declare  war 
against  the  Union.  According  to  the  testimony 
of  Karl  Marx  it  was  this  monster  meeting  of 
the  English  trade  unions,  together  with  the  gen- 
eral attitude  of  the  English  working  class  in  the 
matter,  that  prevented  him  from  carrying  out 
his  intention.  The  Northern  States  of  America 
have  to  thank  the  working  class  of  England  that 
at  that  trying  period  in  their  conflict  with  the 
South  they  were  not  involved  in  an  additional 
war  with  England,  and  perhaps  also  with  France. 

*  Henry  Bryan  Binns:   Abraham  Lincoln.    London,  1907. 


LINCOLN  AND  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  157 

which  would  have  seriously  imperilled  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Union. 

2.    ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKINGMEN 
OF  ENGLAND. 

Near  the  end  of  September,  1862,  Lincoln  is- 
sued a  proclamation  to  the  effect  that  on  Janu- 
ary 1,  1863,  he  would  declare  free  all  slaves  in 
those  States  which  should  then  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States  and  refuse  to  lay  down 
their  arms. 

It  was  natural  for  the  ruling  classes  of  the 
South  to  ignore  this  proclamation.  The  South- 
ern States  had  been  enabled  to  maintain  a  few 
good  privateers  for  injuring  Northern  commerce, 
aided  and  encouraged  therein  mainly  by  Eng- 
land, its  nobility,  shipbuilders  and  merchants, 
with  the  Government's  tacit  approval.  The  slave- 
holders had  every  reason  to  expect  that  the  Eng- 
lish ruling  classes  would  lend  the  Confederacy 
still  further  assistance. 

But  as  we  have  seen,  the  English  working  class 
put  in  its  veto  here.  The  proclamation  by  Lin- 
coln of  his  intention  to  abolish  slavery  by  Janu- 
ary 1st  called  forth  great  rejoicing;  and  although 
there  was  heard  here  and  there  a  note  of  disap- 
pointment because  the  abolition  of  slavery  was 
put  forth  as  a  war  measure  and  not  as  an  un- 
conditional condemnation  of  slavery  on  principle, 
great  demonstrations  of  workingmen  took  place, 


158    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

alike  in  the  north  and  the  south  of  England.  In 
meetings  at  London  and  at  Manchester  it 
was  resolved  to  send  an  address  to  President 
Lincoln  expressing  the  thanks  of  the  English 
workingmen  for  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
and  encouraging  him  in  taking  still  more  decisive 
steps.  Both  meetings  took  place  December  31, 
1862. 

The  address  adopted  by  the  London  meeting 
read  as  follows : 

"The  Workingmen  of  London  to  the  President 

of  the  United  States  of  America. 
"To  His  Excellency,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President 

of  the  United  States  of  America. 
"Sir :  We  who  offer  this  address  are  English- 
men and  workingmen.  We  prize  as  our  dearest 
inheritance,  bought  for  us  by  the  blood  of  our 
fathers,  the  liberty  we  enjoy — the  liberty  of  free 
labor  on  a  free  soil.  We  have,  therefore,  been 
accustomed  to  regard  with  veneration  and  grati- 
tude the  founders  of  the  great  republic  in  which 
the  liberties  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  have  been 
widened  beyond  all  the  precedents  of  the  old 
world,  and  in  which  there  was  nothing  to  con- 
demn or  to  lament  but  the  slavery  and  degrada- 
tion of  men  guilty  only  of  a  colored  skin  or  an 
African  parentage.  We  have  looked  with  ad- 
miration and  sympathy  upon  the  brave,  generous 
and  untiring  efforts  of  a  large  party  in  the  North- 
ern States  to  deliver  the  Union  from  this  curse 


LINCOLN  AND  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  159 

and  shame.  We  rejoiced,  sir,  in  your  election 
to  the  Presidency,  as  a  splendid  proof  that  the 
principles  of  universal  freedom  and  equality 
were  rising  to  the  ascendant.  We  regarded  with 
abhorrence  the  conspiracy  and  rebellion  by  which 
it  was  sought  at  once  to  overthrow  the  supremacy 
of  a  government  based  upon  the  most  popular 
suffrage  in  the  world,  and  to  perpetuate  the  hate- 
ful inequalities  of  race.  We  have  ever  heard 
v/ith  indignation  the  slander  that  ascribed  to  Eng- 
land sympathy  with  a  rebellion  of  slaveholders, 
and  all  proposals  to  recognize  in  friendship  a 
confederacy  that  boasts  of  slavery  as  its  corner- 
stone. We  have  watched  with  the  warmest  in- 
terest the  steady  advance  of  your  policy  along 
the  path  of  emancipation;  and  on  this  eve  of  the 
day  on  which  your  proclamation  of  freedom  takes 
effect,  we  pray  God  to  strengthen  your  hands, 
to  confirm  your  noble  purpose,  and  to  hasten  the 
restoration  of  that  lawful  authority  which  en- 
gages, in  peace  or  war,  by  compensation  or  by 
force  of  arms,  to  realize  the  glorious  principle 
on  which  your  constitution  is  founded — the 
brotherhood,  freedom,  and  equality  of  all  men."* 
On  the  same  day  when  the  workingmen  of 
London  in  mass  meeting  assembled  framed  the 
above  address,  the  workingmen  of  Manchester 
held  a  meeting  for  the  same  purpose.  No  less 
than  6,000  persons  were  present  in  the  hall,  the 

*  Senate  Documents.     Washington,  1863. 


160    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

largest  of  the  city.  The  address  adopted  here 
was  sent  by  the  Mayor  of  Manchester  by  special 
messenger  to  the  American  Minister  at  London, 
Charles  Francis  Adams.  The  importance  which 
the  American  Minister  attached  to  this  manifesta- 
tion of  the  workingmen  may  be  gathered  from 
the  letter  with  which  he  <  forwarded  the  address 
to  Secretary  of  State  Seward,  in  Washington. 

letter  declared: 

"This  meeting  is  in  every  respect  a  most  re- 
/  markable  indication  of  the  state  of  popular  senti- 
ment in  Great  Britain.  It  will  doubtless  make 
a  strong  impression  elsewhere,  and,  if  duly  fol- 
\  lowed  up,  may  have  the  effect  of  restoring,  in  a 
\  degree,  the  amicable  feeling  between  the  two 
\jcountries."* 

le  address,  whose  significance  was  truly  set 
forth   by   this   letter   of   the   minister,    read   as 
follows : 
"Address  from  the  Workingmen  of  Manchester 

to  His  Excellency, 
"Abraham    Lincoln,    President    of    the    United 

States  of  America. 

"As  citizens  of  Manchester,  assembled  at  the 
Free  Trade  Hall,  we  beg  to  express  our  fraternal 
sentiments  towards  you  and  your  country. 

"We  rejoice  in  your  greatness,  as  an  outgrowth 
of  England,  whose  blood  and  language  you  share, 
whose  orderly  and  legal  freedom  you  have  ap- 

*  Senate  Documents.     Washington,  1863. 


LINCOLN  AND  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  161 

plied  to  new  circumstances,  over  a  region  im- 
measurably greater  than  our  own.  We  honor 
your  free  States  as  a  singularly  happy  abode  for 
the  working  millions  where  industry  is  honored 
One  thing  alone  has,  in  the  past,  lessened  our 
sympathy  with  your  country  and  our  confidence 
in  it ;  we  mean  the  ascendancy  of  politicians  who 
not  merely  maintained  Negro  slavery,  but  desired 
to  extend  and  root  it  more  deeply.  Since  we  have 
discerned,  however,  that  the  victory  of  the  free 
North  in  the  war  which  has  so  sorely  distressed 
us  as  well  as  afflicted  you,  will  shake  off  the  fet- 
ters of  the  slave,  you  have  attracted  our  warm 
and  earnest  sympathy. 

"We  joyfully  honor  you,  as  the  President,  and 
the  Congress  with  you,  for  the  many  decisive 
steps  towards  practically  exemplifying  your  be- 
lief in  the  words  of  your  great  founders:  'All 
men  are  created  free  and  equal/ 

"You  have  procured  the  liberation  of  the 
slaves  in  the  district  around  Washington,  and 
thereby  made  the  centre  of  your  federation  vis- 
ibly free.  You  have  enforced  the  laws  against 
the  slave  trade  and  kept  up  your  fleet  against  it, 
even  while  every  ship  was  wanted  for  service  in 
your  terrible  war.  You  have  nobly  decided  to 
receive  ambassadors  from  the  Negro  republics  of 
Hayti  and  Liberia,  thus  forever  removing  that 
tin  worthy  prejudice  which  refuses  the  rights  of 
humanity  to  men  and  women  on  account  of  their 


162    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

color.  In  order  more  effectually  to  stop  the  slave 
trade,  you  have  made  with  our  Queen  a  treaty, 
which  your  Senate  has  ratified,  for  the  right  of 
mutual  search.  Your  Congress  has  decreed  free- 
dom as  the  law  forever  in  the  vast  unoccupied 
or  half-settled  territories  which  are  directly  sub- 
ject to  its  legislative  power.  It  has  offered  pe- 
cuniary aid  to  all  the  States  which  will  enact 
emancipation  locally,  and  has  forbidden  your 
generals  to  restore  fugitive  slaves  who  seek  their 
protection.  You  have  entreated  the  slave  mas- 
ters to  accept  these  moderate  offers;  and,  after 
long  and  patient  waiting,  you,  as  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army,  have  appointed  to-morrow,  the 
first  of  January,  1863,  as  the  day  of  unconditional 
freedom  for  the  slaves  of  the  rebel  States. 
Heartily  do  we  congratulate  you  and  your  coun- 
try on  this  humane  and  righteous  course. 

"We  assume  that  you  cannot  now  stop  short 
of  a  complete  uprooting  of  slavery.  It  would  not 
become  us  to  dictate  any  details,  but  there  are 
broad  principles  of  humanity  which  must  guide 
you.  If  complete  emancipation  in  some  States  be 
deferred,  though  only  to  a  predetermined  day, 
still,  in  the  interval,  human  beings  should  not  be 
counted  chattels.  Women  must  have  rights  of 
chastity  and  maternity,  men  the  rights  of  hus- 
bands; masters  the  liberty  of  manumission.  Jus- 
tice demands  for  the  black,  no  less  than  for  the 
white,  the  protection  of  the  law — that  his  voice 


LINCOLN  AND  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  163 

may  be  heard  in  your  courts.  Nor  must  any  such 
abomination  be  tolerated  as  slave-breeding  States 
and  a  slave  market — if  you  are  to  earn  the  high 
reward  of  all  your  sacrifices  in  the  approval  of 
the  universal  brotherhood  and  of  the  Divine 
Father.  It  is  for  your  free  country  to  decide 
whether  anything  but  immediate  and  total  eman- 
cipation can  secure  the  most  indispensable  rights 
of  humanity,  against  the  inveterate  wickedness 
of  local  laws  and  local  executives. 

"We  implore  you,  for  your  own  honor  and  wel- 
fare, not  to  faint  in  your  providential  mission. 
While  your  enthusiasm  is  aflame,  and  the  tide 
of  events  runs  high,  let  the  work  be  finished 
effectually.  Leave  no  root  of  bitterness  to  spring 
up  and  work  fresh  misery  to  your  children.  It 
is  a  mighty  task,  indeed,  to  reorganize  the  indus- 
try, not  only  of  four  millions  of  the  colored  race, 
but  of  five  millions  of  whites.  Nevertheless,  the 
vast  progress  you  have  made  in  the  short  space 
of  twenty  months  fills  us  with  hope  that  every 
stain  on  your  freedom  will  shortly  be  removed, 
and  that  the  erasure  of  that  foul  blot  upon  civil- 
ization and  Christianity — chattel  slavery — dur- 
ing your  Presidency,  will  cause  the  name  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  be  honored  and  revered  by 
posterity.  We  are  certain  that  such  a  glorious 
consummation  will  cement  Great  Britain  to  the 
United  States  in  close  and  enduring  regards. 
Our  interests,  moreover,  are  identified  with  yours. 


164         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

We  are  truly  one  people,  though  locally  separate. 
And  if  you  have  any  ill  wishers  here,  be  assured 
that  they  are  chiefly  those  who  oppose  liberty  at 
home,  and  that  they  will  be  powerless  to  stir  up 
quarrels  between  us,  from  the  very  day  in  which 
your  country  becomes,  undeniably  and  without 
exception,  the  home  of  the  free. 

"Accept  our  high  admiration  of  your  firmness 
in  upholding  the  proclamation  of  freedom." 

On  February  2,  1863,  Lincoln  sent  the  follow- 
ing letter  in  answer  to  the  address  of  the  London 
workingmen : 

"To  the  workingmen  of  London:  I  have  re- 
ceived the  New  Year's  address  which  you  have 
sent  me,  with  a  sincere  appreciation  of  the  ex- 
alted and  humane  sentiments  by  which  it  was  in- 
spired. 

"As  these  sentiments  are  manifestly  the  endur- 
ing support  of  the  free  institutions  of  England,  so 
I  am  sure  also  that  they  constitute  the  only  reliable 
basis  for  free  institutions  throughout  the  world. 

"The  resources,  advantages  and  powers  of  the 
American  people  are  very  great,  and  they  have 
consequently  succeeded  to  equally  great  respon- 
sibilities. It  seems  to  have  developed  upon  them 
to  test  whether  a  government  established  on  the 
principles  of  human  freedom  can  be  maintained 
against  an  effort  to  build  one  upon  the  exclusive 
foundation  of  human  bondage.  They  will  re- 
joice with  me  in  the  new  evidences  which  your 


LINCOLN  AND  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  165 

proceedings  furnish  that  the  magnanimity  they 
are  exhibiting  is  justly  estimated  by  the  true 
friends  of  freedom  and  humanity  in  foreign 
countries. 

"Accept  my  best  wishes  for  your  individual 
welfare,  and  for  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the 
whole  British  people." 

"Abraham  Lincoln."* 

Previous  to  this,  on  January  19th,  President 
Lincoln  had  sent  a  more  comprehensive  reply  to 
the  address  of  the  workingmen  of  Manchester. 
This  reply  read  as  follows : 

"Washington,  January  19,  1863. 
"To  the  Workingmen  of  Manchester,  England : 

"I  have  the  honor  to  acknowledge  the  receipt 
of  the  address  and  resolutions  which  you  sent  me 
on  the  eve  of  the  new  year.  When  I  came,  on 
the  4th  of  March,  1861,  through  a  free  and  con- 
stitutional election  to  preside  in  the  Government 
of  the  United  States,  the  country  was  found  at 
the  verge  of  civil  war.  Whatever  might  have 
been  the  cause  or  whose  ever  the  fault,  one  duty, 
paramount  to  all  others,  was  before  me,  namely,! 
to  maintain  and  preserve  at  once  the  Constitution] 
and  the  integrity  of  the  Federal  Republic.  A  con- 
scientious purpose  to  perform  this  duty  is  the  key 
to  all  the  measures  of  administration  which  have 
been  and  to  all  which  will  hereafter  be  pursued. 


*  Senate    Documents.      Third    Session,    37th    Congress, 
1862-1863. 


166    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

Under  our  frame  of  Government  and  my  official 
oath,  I  could  not  depart  from  this  purpose  if  I 
would.  It  is  not  always  in  the  power  of  govern- 
ment to  enlarge  or  restrict  the  scope  of  moral  re- 
sults which  follow  the  policies  that  they  may 
deem  it  necessary  for  the  public  safety  from  time 
to  time  to  adopt.  I  have  understood  well  that 
the  duty  of  self-preservation  rests  solely  with  the 
American  people;  but  I  have  at  the  same  time 
been  aware  that  favor  or  disfavor  of  foreign  na- 
tions might  have  a  material  influence  in  enlarging 
or  prolonging  the  struggle  with  disloyal  men  in 
which  the  country  is  engaged.  A  fair  examina- 
tion of  history  has  served  to  authorize  a  belief 
that  the  past  actions  and  influences  of  the  United 
States  were  generally  regarded  as  having  been 
beneficial  toward  mankind.  I  have,  therefore, 
reckoned  upon  the  forbearance  of  nations.  Cir- 
cumstances to  which  you  kindly  allude  induce  me 
especially  to  expect  that  if  justice  and  good  faith 
should  be  practised  by  the  United  States,  they 
would  encounter  no  hostile  influence  on  the  part 
of  Great  Britain.  It  is  now  a  pleasant  duty  to 
acknowledge  the  demonstration  you  have  given 
of  your  desire  that  a  spirit  of  amity  and  peace 
toward  this  country  may  prevail  in  the  councils 
of  your  Queen,  who  is  respected  and  esteemed  in 
your  own  country  only  more  than  she  is  by  the 
kindred  nation  which  has  its  home  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic.  I  know  and  deeply  deplore  the 


LINCOLN  AND  ENGLISH  WORKINGMEN  167 

sufferings  which  the  workingmen  at  Manchester, 
and  in  all  Europe,  are  called  to  endure  in  this 
crisis.  It  has  been  often  and  studiously  repre- 
sented that  the  attempt  to  overthrow  this  Gov- 
ernment, which  was  built  upon  the  foundation  of 
human  rights,  and  to  substitute  for  it  one  which 
should  rest  exclusively  on  the  basis  of  human 
slavery,  was  likely  to  obtain  the  favor  of  Europe. 
Through  the  action  of  our  disloyal  citizens,  the 
workingmen  of  Europe  have  been  subjected  to 
severe  trials,  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  their 
sanction  to  that  attempt.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, I  cannot  but  regard  your  decisive  utter- 
ances upon  the  question  as  an  instance  of  sublime 
Christian  heroism  which  has  not  been  surpassed 
in  any  age  or  in  any  country.  It  is  indeed  an 
energetic  and  reinspiring  assurance  of  the  inher- 
ent power  of  truth,  and  of  the  ultimate  and  uni- 
versal triumph  of  justice,  humanity  and  freedom. 
I  do  not  doubt  that  the  sentiments  you  have  ex- 
pressed will  be  sustained  by  your  great  nation; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  no  hesitation  in 
assuring  you  that  they  will  excite  admiration, 
esteem  and  the  most  reciprocal  feelings  of  friend- 
ship among  the  American  people.  I  hail  this 
interchange  of  sentiment,  therefore,  as  an  augury 
that  whatever  else  may  happen,  whatever  misfor- 
tune may  befall  your  country  or  my  own,  the 
peace  and  friendship  which  now  exist  between  the 


168    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

two  nations  will  be,  as  it  shall  be  my  desire  to 
make  them,  perpetual. 

"Abraham  Lincoln."* 

On  the  26th  of  February  the  Senate  adopted 
a  resolutionf  requesting  that  the  correspondence 
between  President  Lincoln  and  the  workingmen 
of  England  be  laid  before  it.  This  was  done,  and 
on  March  2d  the  Senate  ordered  it  sent  to  the 
printer  and  incorporated  in  the  Senate  Docu- 
ments.** 

President  Lincoln's  letter  to  the  workingmen 
of  Manchester  recognizes  the  sacrifices  which  the 
workingmen  of  England  made  in  behalf  of  the 
Union,  and  mentions  the  sublime  heroism  shown 
by  them,  " unsurpassed  in  any  age  or  land."  The 
polite  phrases  in  regard  to  the  persons  at  the  head 
of  the  English  Government  were  probably  in- 
serted for  diplomatic  reasons.  It  was  really  the 
English  working  class  alone  that  merited  the 
gratitude  of  the  Union. 

3.     LINCOLN'S  ATTITUDE  TOWARDS  THE  WORK- 
ING CLASS. 

Next  to  Washington,  of  all  the  Presidents, 
Lincoln  ranks  highest  in  the  esteem  of  the  Amer- 
ican people.  It  is  not  only  his  relation  to  Negro 

*  Senate   Documents.  1863. 

f  Congressional  Globe.  February  26.  1863. 

**  Senate  Documents.  Third  Session,  37th  Congress, 
1862-63. 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    169 

emancipation  and  his  tragic  death  that  have  made 
him  the  national  hero  of  his  country.  Mythical 
tradition  also  has  so  glorified  him  that  he  is  now 
celebrated  for  views  which  he  did  not  hold. 

Mythical  tradition  has  especially  transfigured 
Lincoln's  attitude  towards  the  working  class.  He 
has  been  credited  with  prophetic  expressions 
favoring  the  inference  that  he  foresaw  the  do- 
minion of  capitalist  corporations  and  entertained 
the  fear  that  all  wealth  would  become  concen- 
trated in  a  few  hands,  to  the  great  peril  of  the 
Republic.  Utterances  have  been  ascribed  to  him 
counselling  the  working  class  to  guard  well  the 
political  rights  which  they  possess  and  not  to  al- 
low such  rights  to  be  wrested  from  them.  He  is 
even  said  to  have  had  the  economic  wisdom  to 
declare  that  every  government  should  strive  to 
secure  for  every  workingman,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  entire  product  of  his  labor.  In  short,  Lincoln 
was  represented  as  a  man  who  had  excogitated 
for  himself  a  clear  view  of  the  economic  evolu- 
tion of  society,  alike  in  the  present  and  the  future, 
who  distinctly  recognized  the  part  which  the 
working  class  would  play  in  this  evolution,  whose 
sympathies  were  entirely  with  the  working  class, 
and  who  raised  a  warning  voice  against  the 
"money  power." 

Lincoln  did  not  possess  this  knowledge  of 
economic  evolution;  he  had  no  idea  of  the  his- 
toric part  the  working  class  is  called  to  play;  he 


170         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

had  no  idea  even  of  the  special  significance  of 
the  labor  movement,  and  his  sympathies  were  not 
with  the  workingmen,  in  so  far  as  they  voiced 
the  demands  of  a  separate  class.  Lincoln  has 
been  extolled  as  a  friend  of  the  workingmen,  as 
almost  a  Socialist,  the  Socialist  press  of  the 
United  States  even  joining  in  the  chorus  of 
praise.  This  praise  has  been  possible  only  be- 
cause sentiments  have  been  ascribed  to  him  which 
he  never  uttered,  and  because  certain  expressions 
used  by  him  have  been  distorted  or  falsified  into 
their  direct  opposite.* 

Apart  from  his  sentiments  in  regard  to  slavery, 
there  are  but  few  among  Lincoln's  numerous 
spoken  and  written  utterances  which  deal  with 
the  labor  question.  In  none  of  these  utterances 
did  he  declare  himself  in  favor  of  the  working 

*  An  ingenious  fabrication  of  utterances  on  labor  pur- 
porting to  be  Lincoln's  has  been  printed  and  circulated  by 
the  thousand  in  every  part  of  the  United  States.  It  con- 
sists of  five  paragraphs,  the  last  four  of  which  are  more 
or  less  genuine,  but  are  distorted  out  of  their  meaning. 
The  first  paragraph  begins,  "I  see  in  the  near  future  a 
crisis  approaching  that  unnerves  me."  The  whole  fabri- 
cation was  analyzed  by  W.  J.  Ghent  in  Collier's  Weekly 
for  April  1,  1905.  Of  the  first  paragraph  Mr.  Ghent  writes  : 

"[It]  is  almost  certainly  a  forgery.  The  style  is  not 
Lincoln's,  nor  in  so  far  as  any  one  can  now  say,  are  the 
sentiments.  Nowhere  among  his  authenticated  utter- 
ances is  there  to  be  found  anything  resembling  either  the 
form  or  the  substance  of  this  paragraph.  No  one  has  ever 
been  able  to  show  the  original  in  Lincoln's  hand,  and  re- 
peated demands  for  its  production  have  met  only  vague 
assertions  of  its  existence  in  some  other  and  generally 
remote  place." 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    171 

class  and  its  special  demands  as  antagonistic  to 
the  other  classes  of  the  population.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  always  avoided  recognizing  such  an- 
tagonisms. At  Cincinnati,  on  February  12,  1861, 
he  addressed  a  meeting  of  German  workingmen. 
When  the  chairman  declared  it  as  the  sense  of 
those  present  that  the  working  class  must  be  the 
foundation  of  all  government,  Lincoln  cautiously 
remarked : 

"I  agree  with  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the 
workingmen  are  the  basis  of  all  government,  for 
the  plain  reason  that  they  are  the  more  numerous, 
and  as  you  added,  that  those  were  the  sentiments 
of  the  gentlemen  present,  representing  not  only 
the  working  class,  but  citizens  of  other  callings 
than  those  of  the  mechanic,  I  am  happy  to  con- 
cur with  you  in  these  sentiments." 

Even  before  this,  in  March,  1860,  Lincoln  had 
expressed  himself  in  regard  to  the  labor  move- 
ment. The  campaign  had  taken  him  to  New  Eng- 
land, where  the  struggles  of  the  workingmen  pre- 
sented themselves  to  him  more  forcibly  than  else- 
where. In  Massachusetts  there  was  in  progress 
a  strike  of  the  shoemakers  which  Senator  Doug- 
las had  represented  as  a  consequence  "of  this  un- 
fortunate sectional  warfare"  between  the  North 
and  the  South.  In  a  speech  at  Hartford,  Conn., 
on  March  5,  1860,  Lincoln  challenged  the  ridicu- 
lous statement  of  Douglas,  saying  he  "thanked 
God  that  we  have  a  system  of  labor  where  there 


172         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

can  be  a  strike.  Whatever  the  pressure,  there  is 
a  point  where  the  workingman  may  stop."  fHer 
too,  Lincoln  added  cautiously  that  he  did  not  pre- 
tend to  be  familiar  with  the  subject  of  the  shoe 
strike.  "If  you  give  up  your  convictions  and  call 
slavery  right,  as  they  do,  you  let  slavery  in  upon 
you — instead  of  white  laborers  who  can  strike, 
you'll  soon  have  black  laborers  who  can't  strike."* 

In  a  speech  at  New  Haven,  Conn.,  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  Lincoln  returned  to  the  subject,  say- 
ing: 

"I  am  glad  to  see  that  a  system  of  labor  pre- 
vails in  New  England  under  which  laborers  can 
strike  when  they  want  to,  where  they  are  not 
obliged  to  work  under  all  circumstances,  and  are 
not  tied  down  and  obliged  to  labor  whether  you 
pay  them  or  not.  I  like  the  system  which  lets 
a  man  quit  when  he  wants  to,  and  wish  it  might 
prevail  everywhere.  One  of  the  reasons  why  I 
am  opposed  to  slavery  is  just  here.  What  is  the 
true  condition  of  the  laborer  ?  I  take  it  that  it  is 
the  best  for  all  to  leave  each  man  free  to  acquire 
property  as  fast  as  he  can.  Some  will  get 
wealthy.  I  don't  believe  in  a  law  to  prevent  a 
man  from  getting  rich;  it  would  do  more  harm 
than  good.  So  while  we  do  not  propose  any  war 
upon  capital,  we  do  wish  to  allow  the  humblest 
man  an  equal  chance  to  get  rich  with  everybody 


*J.  G.  Nicolay  and  J.  Hay:    Abraham  Lincoln,  I.,  pp. 
615-616. 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    173 

else.  When  one  starts  poor,  as  most  do  in  the 
race  of  life,  free  society  is  such  that  he  knows 
he  can  better  his  condition, — he  knows  that  there 
is  no  fixed  condition  of  labor  for  his  whole  life. 
I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  twenty-five 
years  ago  I  was  a  hired  laborer,  mauling  rails, 
at  work  on  a  flatboat — just  what  might  happen 
to  any  poor  man's  son.  I  want  every  man  to 
have  his  chance — and  I  believe  a  black  man  is 
entitled  to  it — in  which  he  can  better  his  condition 
— when  he  may  look  forward  and  hope  to  be  a 
hired  laborer  this  year  and  the  next,  work  for 
himself  afterward,  and  finally  to  hire  men  to 
work  for  him.  That  is  the  true  system."* 

One  may  gather  from  this  speech  that  Lincoln 
regarded  the  strike  as  a  rightful  weapon  in  the  j 
struggles  of  the  workingmen,  but  the  cautious 
reserve  with  which  he  discusses  the  matter  leaves 
uncertain  his  attitude  towards  labor  organiza- 
tions and  particularly  towards  trade  unions. 

The  two  speeches  merely  show  that  Lincoln 
preferred  the  system  of  "free  labor"  to  the  sys- 
tem of  slave  labor.  For  the  rest,  it  is  to  be  seen 
from  his  observations  that  he  had  no  compre- 
hension of  the  aims  and  ends  of  the  labor  move- 
ment or  of  the  special  interests  of  the  working 
class.  The  labor  movement  was  to  him  a  phe- 
nomenon for  which  he  had  no  understanding  and 


*  Nicolay  and  Hay,  I.,  pp.  625-626. 


174         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

to  which  he  probably  never  paid  any  particular 
attention. 

After  his  election  to  the  Presidency,  Lincoln 
discussed  the  question  of  capital  and  labor  more 
thoroughly  in  his  message  to  Congress  of  Decem- 
ber, 1861.  He  took  the  same  position  in  this 
document  which  he  had  set  forth  in  his  speeches 
in  Hartford  and  New  Haven,  and  even  earlier 
in  an  address  at  Milwaukee,  and  defended  it  in 
almost  the  same  language.  This  message  pre- 
cisely defined  Lincoln's  position  in  relation  to 
economic  questions,  and  it  must  never  be  left  out 
of  consideration  if  one  wishes  to  form  a  true  view 
of  the  opinions  of  the  man  in  regard  to  these  mat- 
ters. 

Later,  in  the  year  preceding  his  death,  Lincoln 
made  special  reference  to  the  propositions  in  this 
message,  as  to  a  sort  of  programme  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  workingmen  for  their  consideration, 
thereby  making  it  plain  that  he  never  discarded 
the  views  there  laid  down. 

In  New  York,  in  1863,  a  workingmen's  or- 
ganization had  been  formed  under  the  name  of 
the  Republican  Workingmen's  Association  of 
New  York.  This  association  resolved  to 
make  President  Lincoln  an  honorary  member. 
A  committee  was  appointed  and  sent  to 
Washington  for  the  purpose  of  apprising  the 
President  of  his  election  to  an  honorary  member- 
ship in  the  association  and  of  submitting  to  him 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    175 

an  address.     Lincoln  received  this  committee  on 
March  21,  1864,  and  addressed  them  as  follows: 

"Gentlemen  of  the  Committee:  The  honorary 
membership  in  your  association,  as  generously 
tendered,  is  gratefully  accepted. 

"You  comprehend,  as  your  address  shows,  that 
the  existing  rebellion  means  more,  and  tends  to 
more,  than  the  perpetuation  of  African  slavery— 
that  it  is,  in  fact,  a  war  upon  the  rights  of  all 
working  people.  Partly  to  show  that  this  view 
has  not  escaped  my  attention,  and  partly  that  I 
cannot  better  express  myself,  I  read  a  passage 
from  the  message  to  Congress  in  December, 
1861  : 

"  'It  continues  to  develop  that  the  insurrec- 
tion is  largely,  if  not  exclusively,  a  war  upon  the 
first  principle  of  popular  government — the  rights 
of  the  people.  Conclusive  evidence  of  this  is  found 
in  the  most  grave  and  maturely  considered  public 
documents  as  well  as  in  the  general  tone  of  the 
insurgents.  Tn  those  documents  we  find  the 
abridgement  of  the  existing  right  of  suffrage,  and 
the  denial  to  the  people  of  all  right  to  participate 
in  the  selection  of  public  officers,  except  the  legis- 
lative, boldly  advocated,  with  labored  arguments 
to  prove  that  large  control  of  the  people  in  gov- 
ernment is  the  source  of  all  political  evil.  Mon- 
archy itself  is  sometimes  hinted  at  as  a  possible 
refuge  from  the  power  of  the  people. 

"  'In  my  present  position  I  could  scarcely  be 


176         LINCOLN,   LABOR   AND    SLAVERY 

justified  were  I  to  omit  raising  a  warning  voice 
against  this  approach  of  returning  despotism. 

'  'It  is  not  needed,  nor  fitting  here,  that  a  gen- 
eral argument  should  be  made  in  favor  of  popu- 
lar institutions;  but  there  is  one  point,  with  its 
connections,  not  so  hackneyed  as  most  others,  to 
which  I  ask  a  brief  attention.  It  is  the  effort,  to 
place  capital  on  an  equal  footing  with,  if  not 
above,  labor,  in  the  structure  of  government.  It 
is  assumed  that  labor  is  available  only  in  connec- 
tion with  capital,  that  nobody  labors  unless  some- 
body else,  owning  capital,  somehow  by  the  use  of 
it  induces  him  to  labor.  This  assumed,  it  is  next 
considered  whether  it  is  best,  that  capital  shall 
hire  laborers  and  thus  induce  them  to  work  by 
their  own  consent,  or  buy  them  and  drive  them  to 
it  without  their  consent.  Having  proceeded  so 
far,  it  is  naturally  concluded  that  all  laborers  are 
either  hired  laborers  or  what  we  call  slaves,  and, 
further,  it  is  assumed  that  whoever  is  once  a  hired 
laborer,  is  fixed  in  that  condition  for  life. 

"  'Now,  there  is  no  such  relation  between  capi- 
tal and  labor  as  assumed;  nor  is  there  any  such 
thing  as  a  free  man  being  fixed  for  life  in  the  con- 
dition of  a  hired  laborer.  Both  these  assumptions 
are  false,  and  all  inferences  from  them  are 
groundless. 

"  'Labor  is  prior  to,  and  independent  of,  capi- 
tal. Capital  is  only  the  fruit  of  labor  and  could 
never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  existed 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    177 

Labor  is  the  superior  of  capital,  and  deserves 
much  the  higher  consideration.  Capital  has  its 
rights,  which  are  as  worthy  of  protection  as  any 
other  rights.  Nor  is  it  denied  that  there  is,  and 
probably  always  will  be,  a  relation  between  capi- 
tal and  labor,  producing  mutual  benefits.  The 
error  is  in  assuming  that  the  whole  labor  of  the 
community  exists  within  that  relation.  A  few  men 
own  capital,  and  that  few  avoid  labor  themselves, 
and,  with  their  capital,  hire  or  buy  another  few  to 
labor  for  them.  A  large  majority  belong  to 
neither  class — neither  work  for  others,  nor  have 
others  working  for  them.  In  most  of  the  South- 
ern States  a  majority  of  the  whole  people,  of  all 
colors,  are  neither  slaves  nor  masters;  while  in 
the  Northern,  a  large  majority  are  neither  hirers 
nor  hired.  Men  with  their  families — wives,  sons, 
and  daughters — work  for  themselves,  on  their 
farms,  in  their  houses,  and  in  their  shops,  taking 
the  whole  product  to  themselves,  and  asking  no 
favors  of  capital  on  the  one  hand,  nor  of  hired 
laborers  or  slaves  on  the  other.  It  is  not  forgot- 
ten that  a  considerable  number  of  persons  mingle 
their  own  labor  with  capital,  that  is:  they  labor 
with  their  own  hands,  and  also  buy  or  hire  others 
to  labor  for  them,  but  this  is  only  a  mixed  and 
not  a  distinct  class.  No  principle  stated  is  dis- 
turbed by  the  existence  of  the  mixed  class.* 

"  'Again,  as  has  already  been  said,  there  is 
not,  of  necessity,  any  such  thing  as  the  free  hired 


178    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

laborer  being  fixed  to  that  condition  for  life. 
Many  independent  men  everywhere  in  those 
States,  a  few  years  back  in  their  lives,  were  hired 
laborers.  The  prudent  penniless  beginner  in  the 
world  labors  for  wages  a  while,  saves  a  surplus 
with  which  to  buy  tools  or  land  for  himself,  then 
labors  on  his  own  account  another  while,  and  at 
length  hires  another  new  beginner  to  help  him. 
This  is  the  just  and  generous  and  prosperous  sys- 
tem, which  opens  the  way  to  all — gives  hope  to 
all  and  consequent  energy  and  progress  and  im- 
provement of  condition  to  all.  No  men  living 
are  more  worthy  to  be  trusted  than  those  who 
toil  up  from  poverty — none  less  inclined  to  take 
or  touch  that  which  they  have  not  honestly 
earned.  Let  them  beware  of  surrendering  a  poli- 
tical power  which  they  already  possess,  and 
which,  if  surrendered,  will  surely  be  used  to  close 
the  door  of  advancement  against  such  as  they, 
and  to  fix  new  disabilities  and  burdens  upon  them, 
till  all  of  liberty  shall  be  lost.' 

"The  views  then  expressed  remain  unchanged, 
nor  have  I  much  to  add.  None  are  so  deeply  in- 
terested to  resist  the  present  rebellion  as  the  work- 
ing people.  Let  them  beware  of  prejudice,  work- 
ing division  and  hostility  among  themselves.  The 
most  notable  feature  of  a  disturbance  in  your 
city  last  summer  was  the  hanging  of  some  work- 
ing people  by  other  working  people.  It  should 
never  be  so.  The  strongest  bond  of  human  sym- 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    179 

pa  thy,  outside  of  the  family  relation,  should  be 
one  uniting  all  working  people,  of  all  nations,  and 
tongues,  and  kindreds.  Nor  should  this  lead  to 
a  war  upon  property,  or  the  owners  of  property. 
Property  is  the  fruit  of  labor;  property  is  de- 
sirable; is  a  positive  good  in  the  world.  That 
some  should  be  rich  shows  that  others  may  be- 
come rich,  and  hence  is  just  encouragement  to 
industry  and  enterprise.  Let  not  him  who  is 
houseless  pull  down  the  house  of  another,  but  let 
him  work  diligently  and  build  one  for  himself, 
thus  by  example  assuring  that  his  own  shall  be 
safe  from  violence  when  built."* 

It  is  evident  from  this  address  that  Lincoln 
considered  himself  as  belonging  to  the  lower 
middle  class  (petty  bourgeoisie)  and  that  he  was 
imbued  by  its  ideals.  Nothing  is  more  natural, 
considering  the  state  of  social  evolution  in  Amer- 
ica at  that  time  and  Lincoln's  individual  de- 
velopment. Lincoln  denies  the  existence  of  an 
industrial  proletariat,  "fixed  to  that  condition  for 
life."  In  the  light  of  his  lower  middle-class  ex- 
periences and  ideals  he  still  saw  for  every  one. 
the  possibility  of  advancement  from  wage  worker 
to  proprietor.  His  observations  are  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  lower  middle  class,  the  men  who  are 
neither  capitalists  nor  wage-workers.  The  for- 
mer wage  worker  who  advances  by  his  own  ef- 
forts and  then  hires  another  beginner  as  a  wage 

*  Nicolay  and  Hay,  pp.  501-502. 


180    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

worker,  thus  becoming  a  small  employer — such 
is  Lincoln's  ideal.  That  is  to  him  "the  just  and 
generous  and  prosperous  system.'5  He  warns  this 
stratum  of  the  population,  who  "toil  up  from 
poverty,"  to  beware  of  surrendering  their  politi- 
cal rights  and  their  political  power.  It  is  not  the 
working  men  whom  Lincoln  counsels  to  vigilance 
over  their  political  rights,  but  the  lower  middle 
class.  And  whoever  might  still  entertain  the 
slightest  doubt  concerning  Lincoln's  position 
among  the  classes  constituting  society,  and  the 
distance  by  which  he  was  still  separated  from 
the  Socialist  point  of  view,  will  be  set  right  by 
the  close  of  his  address  to  the  New  York  labor 
committee,  by  his  glorification  of  property  and 
its  owners,  and  by  his  warning  to  workingmen  not 
to  "make  war  upon  property."  If  he  was  at  all 
aware  of  Socialist  views  and  had  formed  an 
opinion  concerning  them,  it  must  have  been  a 
hostile  one.  This  was  quite  natural !  The  labor 
question  and  its  implications  were  foreign  to  him. 
He  represented  the  farmer  and  the  lower  middle 
class  with  whom  his  strength  lay,  and  who  at  that 
period  constituted  the  most  powerful  stratum  of 
the  population  of  the  Northern  States  of  the 
Union. 

The  passage  in  Lincoln's  address  to  the  New 
York  labor  committee,  "the  strongest  bond  of 
human  sympathy,  outside  of  the  family  rela- 
tion, should  be  one  uniting  all  working  people,  of 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    181 

all  nations  and  tongues  and  kindreds,"  has  led 
some  to  conclude  that  its  author  must  have  had 
an  understanding  of  the  international  solidarity 
of  the  working  class  and  of  the  special  class 
solidarity  which  is  peculiar  to  the  labor  move- 
ment on  a  higher  plane.  It  is  possible  that  the 
heroic  attitude  in  favor  of  the  Union  assumed 
by  the  working  class  of  England  during  the  war 
had  awakened  in  him  a  slight  understanding  of 
the  class  solidarity  of  workingmen,  but  it  is  not 
probable,  and  we  must  consider  that  beautiful 
passage  as  a  mere  mode  of  expression  without 
any  deeper  significance.  If  one  were  to  draw 
inferences  from  a  single  passage  of  this  kind  as 
to  Lincoln's  general  way  of  thinking  in  regard 
to  the  labor  movement,  one  would  have  to  con- 
cede the  right  of  other  classes  to  derive  precisely 
contrary  conclusions  from  his  remarks  in  the 
speech  at  New  Haven:  "I  take  it  that  it  is  the 
best  for  all  to'  leave  each  man  free  to  acquire 
property  as  fast  as  he  can,"  and  "I  don't  believe 
in  a  law  to  prevent  a  man  from  getting  rich." 

But  there  is  still  another  document  on  the 
strength  of  which  a  claim  has  been  made  for  Lin- 
coln's approach  to  Socialism.  In  1847  Lincoln 
had  outlined  a  speech  on  the  protective  tariff  and 
free  trade  which  he  intended  to  deliver  in  Con- 
gress. In  this  outline  occur  the  following  state- 
ments : 

"In  the  early  days  of  our  race  the  Almighty  said 


182    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

to  the  first  of  our  race,  'In  the  sweat  of  thy  face 
shalt  thou  eat  bread,'  and  since  then,  if  we  ex- 
cept the  light  and  the  air  of  heaven,  no  good 
thing  has  been  or  can  be  enjoyed  by  us  without 
having  first  cost  labor.  And  inasmuch  as  most 
good  things  are  produced  by  labor,  it  follows  that 
all  such  things  of  right  belong  to  those  whose 
labor  has  produced  them.  But  it  has  so  happened, 
in  all  ages  of  the  world,  that  some  have  labored, 
and  others  have  without  labor  enjoyed  a  large 
proportion  of  the  fruits.  This  is  wrong,  and 
should  not  continue.  To  secure  to  each  laborer 
the  whole  product  of  his  labor,  or  as  nearly  as 
possible,  is  a  worthy  object  of  any  good  govern- 
ment. 

"But  then  the  question  arises,  how  can  a  gov- 
ernment best  effect  this?  In  our  own  country, 
in  its  present  condition,  will  the  protective  prin- 
ciple advance  or  retard  this  object?  Upon  this 
subject  the  habits  of  our  whole  species  fall  into 
three  great  classes — useful  labor,  useless  labor 
and  idleness.  Of  these,  the  first  only  is  meri- 
torious, and  to  it  all  the  products  of  labor  right- 
fully belong;  but  the  two  latter,  while  they  ex- 
ist, are  heavy  pensioners  upon  the  first,  robbing 
it  of  a  large  portion  of  its  just  rights.  The  only 
remedy  for  this  is  to,  so  far  as  possible,  drive 
useless  labor  and  idleness  out  of  existence.  And, 
first,  as  to  useless  labor.  Before  making  war 
upon  this  we  must  learn  to  distinguish  it  from 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    183 

useful.  It  appears  to  me  that  all  labor  done  directly 
and  indirectly  in  carrying  articles  to  the  place 
of  consumption,  which  could  have  been  produced 
in  sufficient  abundance,  with  as  little  labor,  at  the 
place  of  consumption  as  at  the  place  they  were 
carried  from,  is  useless  labor."* 

On  the  basis  of  these  considerations  Lincoln 
attempted  to  demonstrate  that  it  would  be  use- 
ful labor  to  inaugurate  and  develop  in  the  South, 
where  cotton  is  indigenous,  the  cotton  spinning 
and  weaving  industry.  To  this  end  he  demanded 
the  maintenance  of  the  protective  tariff. 

He  writes  literally: 

"I  try  to  show  that  the  abandonment  of  the 
protective  policy  by  the  American  Government 
must  result  in  the  increase  of  both  useless  labor 
and  idleness,  and  so,  in  proportion,  must  produce 
want  and  ruin  among  the  people." 

Considered  out  of  their  context,  Lincoln's  in- 
troductory remarks  in  this  outline  might  pro- 
duce the  impression  that  he  indeed  inclined  to- 
wards certain  Socialist  views  according  to  which 
the  product  of  labor  should  belong  to  him  who 
created  it.  It  is  even  not  impossible  that  Lincoln, 
at  the  high  tide  of  the  Fourierist  movement,  at 
the  time  when  he  wrote  his  outline,  had  become 
acquainted  with  newspapers  and  pamphlets  con- 
taining similar  propositions  and  that  he  drew  his 

*  Nicolay  and  Hay,  L,  p.  92  ff. 


184         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

inspiration  from  these.  It  is  certain  that  he  was 
a  reader  of  Greeley's  Tribune.  But  in  the  con- 
nection where  we  find  it,  the  sentence  "to  secure 
to  each  laborer  the  whole  product  of  his  labor, 
or  as  nearly  as  possible,  is  a  worthy  object  of 
any  good  government/'  cannot  mean  that  the 
wage  worker  is  to  receive  the  product  of  his 
labor.  That  labor  alone  produces  values  was  by 
no  means  clear  to  Lincoln.  In  his  view  the  manu- 
facturer who  exploited  a  number  of  men  was 
also  doing  useful  work,  and  he,  too,  was  there- 
fore entitled  to  the  product  of  his  labor.  The 
transport  of  merchandise  he  did  not  consider  as 
useful  labor,  and  the  workingmen  engaged  in  the 
transportation  of  merchandise  were  therefore  not 
entitled  to  a  share  of  the  product.  Lincoln's  So- 
cialist-sounding phrases  of  1847  by  no  means 
bore  a  Socialist  meaning,  they  could  not  bear 
such  a  meaning,  because  their  author  had  no  con- 
ception of  the  working  class  as  a  well-defined 
stratum  of  the  population,  with  economic  inter- 
ests of  its  own  and  with  definite  historical  aims. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  a  Socialist,  nor  was 
he  particularly  friendly  to  workingmen  as  the 
components  of  a  class.  The  ideas  of  the  modern 
working-class  movement  were  to  him  foreign 
ideas  and  remained  so  even  in  his  later  years.  He 
stood  on  the  ground  of  the  lower  middle  class 
and  the  farmer  element,  to  which  he  himself  be- 


LINCOLN  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS    185 

longed.     He  was  a  man  of  his  age,  with  whose/ 
ideas  he  was  imbued.    He  was  not  a  man  of  the  I 
future,  and  he  knew  nothing  of  the  ideas  of  the( 
future.    And  the  ideas  which  have  been  developed 
by  the  labor  movement  were  to  him  the  ideas  of  a 
future  time. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  WORKWOMEN'S  ASSO- 
CIATION AND  THE  AMERICAN  CIVIL  WAR. 

1.     ADDRESS    OF    THE    GENERAL    COUNCIL    TO 
ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

On  September  28,  1864,  in  St.  Martin's  Hall 
in  London,  there  took  place  that  famous  meeting 
of  workingmen  which  gave  birth  to  the  Interna- 
tional Workingmen's  Association,  an  organiza- 
tion which  powerfully  stimulated  and  promoted 
the  labor  movement  of  all  countries  in  the  six- 
ties. This  meeting  appointed  a  provisional  cen- 
tral committee  for  the  management  of  the  af- 
fairs of  the  new  organization,  which  came  later 
to  be  called  the  General  Council,  and  which  was 
composed  of  representatives  of  different  nation- 
alities. 

Even  before  the  foundation  of  the  Interna- 
tional Workingmen's  Association,  it  was  above 
all  others  the  men  who  became  the  members  of 
the  General  Council  who  had  worked  for  the 
cause  of  the  American  North  in  their  circles,  and 
who  had  encouraged  and  inspired  the  English 
working  class  in  their  heroic  stand  against  the 
manufacturers  and  the  Government. 


ADDRESS   TO    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN       187 

On  November  27,  1864,  Karl  Marx,  the  lead- 
ing spirit  of  the  General  Council,  wrote  thus 
about  the  elements  composing  this  committee  to 
his  friend  Joseph  Weydemeyer,  then  in  the 
United  States : 

"Its  English  members  are  mostly  chiefs  of  the 
local  trades  unions,  hence  the  real  labor  kings 
of  London,  the  same  people  who  gave  Garibaldi 
such  a  rousing  welcome,  and  who  by  their  mon- 
ster meeting  in  St.  James'  Hall  (Bright  in  the 
chair)  prevented  Palmerston  from  declaring  war 
against  the  United  States  when  he  was  on  the 
point  of  doing  it."* 

Previous  to  the  organization  of  the  Interna- 
tional Workingmen's  Association  Marx  also  had 
thrown  his  influence  to  the  leaders  of  the  Eng- 
lish workingmen  in  favor  of  the  Union  cause. 

The  General  Council  of  the  International  con- 
tinued the  agitation  in  this  direction  which  its 
members  had  previously  begun. 

In  the  beginning  of  November,  1864,  Lincoln 
was  elected  for  the  second  time  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States.  Under  the  direct  influence 
and  upon  the  suggestion  of  the  General  Council 
of  the  International  Workingmen's  Association, 
the  workingmen  of  London  arranged  a  new  series 
of  meetings  to  protest  against  the  anti-Union  at- 
titude of  the  manufacturers  and  the  Government 


*  F.  Mehring,    Neue    Beitrdge    sur    Biographic  von  K. 
Marx  und  F.  Engels,  Neue  Zeit,  1906-07,  Vol.  II,  p.  224. 


-> 


188         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

of  their  country.    It  was  Marx  who  furnished  the 
initiative  for  this  renewal  of  agitation.* 

In  one  of  the  following  meetings  of  the  Gen- 
eral Council,  one  of  its  members,  Dick,  made  a 
motion,  which  was  seconded  by  G.  Howell,  to 
draft  an  address  to  the  American  people  con- 
gratulating them  upon  their  struggles  and  sac- 
rifices in  behalf  of  the  principles  of  freedom  and 
upon  their  re-election  of  Lincoln  to  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States.  A  committee  was 
appointed  to  formulate  this  address,  and  this 
committee  submitted  its  draft,  the  author  of 
which  was  Marx,  to  the  General  Council  at  its 
meeting  on  November  29th.  The  draft  was  ac- 
cepted, and  a  resolution  was  adopted  to  forward 
it  by  a  committee  to  Charles  Francis  Adams,  thi 
American  Minister  at  London,  for  transmis- 
sion to  his  Government.  The  following  is  the 
text  of  the  address : 

"To  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America. 

"Sir: — We  congratulate  the  American  people 
upon  your  re-election  by  a  large  majority.  If 
resistance  to  the  Slave  Power  was  the  watchword 
of  your  first  election,  the  triumphal  war-cry  of 
your  re-election  is  Death  to  Slavery. 

"From  the  commencement  of  the  titanic  Amer- 


*  According  to  letters  to  the  author  by  Friedrich  Less- 
ner,  of  London,  at  the  time  a  member  of  the  General 
Council  of  the  International  Workingmen's  Association. 


ADDRESS    TO    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN       189 

ican  strife  the  workingmen  of  Europe  felt  dis- 
tinctively that  the  Star  Spangled  Banner  carried 
the  destiny  of  their  class.  The  contest  for  the 
territories  which  opened  the  dire  epopee,  was  it 
not  to  decide  whether  the  virgin  soil  of  immense 
tracts  should  be  wedded  to  the  labor  of  the  immi- 
grant or  be  prostituted  by  the  tramp  of  the  slave- 
driver? 

"When  an  oligarchy  of  300,000  slaveholders 
dared  to  inscribe  for  the  first  time  in  the  annals 
of  the  world  'Slavery'  on  the  banner  of  armed 
revolt,  when  on  the  very  spots  where  hardly  a 
century  ago  the  idea  of  one  great  Democratic  Re- 
public had  first  sprung  up,  whence  the  first 
declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man  was  issued,  and 
the  first  impulse  given  to  the  European  Revolu- 
tion of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  on  those  very 
spots  counter-revolution,  with  systematic  thor- 
oughness, gloried  in  rescinding  'the  ideas  enter- 
tained at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  old 
constitution'  and  maintained  'slavery  to  be  a  bene- 
ficial institution/  indeed,  the  only  solution  of  the 
great  problem  of  the  'relation  of  capital  to  labor/ 
and  cynically  proclaimed  property  in  man  'the 
cornerstone  of  the  new  edifice/ — then  the  work- 
ing classes  of  Europe  understood  at  once,  even 
before  the  fanatic  partisanship  of  the  upper 
classes,  for  the  Confederate  gentry  had  given  its 
dismal  warning,  that  the  slaveholders'  rebellion 
was  to  sound  the  tocsin  for  a  general  holy  war 


190         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

cf  property  against  labor,  and  that  for  the  men 
of  labor,  with  their  hopes  for  the  future,  even 
their  past  conquests  were  at  stake  in  that  tremen- 
dous conflict  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
Everywhere  they  bore  therefore  patiently  the 
hardships  imposed  upon  them  by  the  cotton  crisis. 
opposed  enthusiastically  the  pro-slavery  interven- 
tion— importunities  of  their  betters — and  from 
most  parts  of  Europe  contributed  their  quota  of 
blood  to  the  good  of  the  cause. 

"While  the  workingmen,  the  true  political 
power  of  the  North,  allowed  slavery  to  defile  their 
own  republic,  while  before  the  Negro,  mastered 
and  sold  without  his  concurrence,  they  boasted 
it  the  highest  prerogative  of  the  white-skinned 
laborer  to  sell  himself  and  choose  his  own  master, 
they  were  unable  to  attain  the  true  freedom  of 
labor,  or  to  support  their  European  brethren  in 
their  struggle  for  emancipation;  but  this  barrier 
to  progress  has  been  swept  off  by  the  red  sea  of 
civil  war. 

"The  workingmen  of  Europe  felt  sure  that, 
as  the  American  War  of  Independence  initiated 
a  new  era  of  ascendency  for  the  middle  class,  so 
the  American  Anti-slavery  War  will  do  for  the 
working  classes.  They  consider  it  an  earnest  sign 
of  the  epoch  to  come  that  it  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  single-minded  son  of  the 
working  class,  to  lead  his  country  through  the 


ADDRESS    TO    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN       191 

matchless  struggle  for  the  rescue  of  the  enchained 
race  and  the  reconstruction  of  a  social  world. 

"Signed  on  behalf  of  the  International  Work- 
ingmen's  Association,  the  Central  Council : 

"Longmaid,  Worley,  Whitlock,  Blackmore, 
Hartwell,  Pidgeon,  Lucraft,  Weston,  Dell, 
Nicars,  Shaw,  Lake,  Buckley,  Osborn,  Howell, 
Carter,  Wheeler,  Starnsby,  Morgan,  Grossmith, 
Dick,  Denoual,  Jourdain,  Morissot,  Leroux,  Bor- 
dage,  Bosquet,  Talandier,  Dupont,  L.  Wolf,  Al- 
drovandi,  Lama,  Solustri,  Nuspert,  Eccarius, 
Wolf,  Lessner,  Pfander,  Lochner,  Taub,  Balliter, 
Rypcrynski,  Hansen,  Schantzenbeck,  Smales, 
Cornelius,  Peterson,  Otto,  Bagnagatti,  Setocri; 
George  Odgers,  President  of  the  Council ;  P.  V. 
Lubez,  Corresponding  Secretary  for  France; 
Karl  Marx,  Corresponding  Secretary  for  Ger- 
many; C.  P.  Fontana,  Corresponding  Secretary 
for  Italy;  J.  E.  Holtorp,  Corresponding  Secre- 
tary for  Poland;  H.  F.  Jung,  Corresponding 
Secretary  for  Switzerland;  William  Cremer, 
Hon.  General  Secretary,  18  Greek  Street,  Soho, 
London  W."  * 

At  the  meeting  of  the  General  Council  on 
Tuesday,  February  2,  1865,  the  General  Secretary 
read  a  reply,  written  by  the  United  States  Min- 
ister in  London,  which  was  as  follows : 

Beehive.     London,  Jan.  7,  1865. 


192         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

"Legation  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

"London,  Jan.  28,  1865. 

"Sir: — I  am  directed  to  inform  you  that  the 
address  of  the  Central  Council  of  your  Associa- 
tion, which  was  duly  transmitted  through  this 
legation  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  has  been  received  by  him.  So  far  as 
the  sentiments  expressed  by  it  are  personal,  they 
are  accepted  by  him  with  a  sincere  and  anxious 
desire  that  he  may  be  able  to  prove  himself  not 
unworthy  of  the  confidence  which  has  been  re- 
cently extended  to  him  by  his  fellow-citizens,  and 
by  so  many  friends  of  humanity  and  progress 
throughout  the  world.  The  Government  of  the 
United  States  of  America  has  a  clear  conscious- 
ness that  its  policy  neither  is,  nor  could  be,  reac- 
tionary; but  at  the  same  time  it  adheres  to  the 
course  which  it  adopted  at  the  beginning  of  ab- 
staining everywhere  from  propagandism  and  un- 
lawful intervention.  It  strives  to  do  equal  jus- 
tice to  all  states  and  to  all  men,  and  it  relies  upon 
the  beneficent  results  of  that  effort  for  support 
at  home>  and  for  respect  and  good  will  through- 
out the  world.  Nations  do  not  exist  for  them- 
selves alone,  but  to  promote  the  welfare  and  hap- 
piness of  mankind  by  benevolent  intercourse  and 
example.  It  is  in  this  relation  that  the  United 
States  regard  their  cause  in  the  present  conflict 
with  slavery-maintaining  insurgents  as  the  cause 
of  human  nature,  and  they  derive  new  encourage- 


ADDRESS  TO  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON      193 

ment  to  persevere  from  the  testimony  of  the 
workingmen  of  Europe  that  the  National  Alli- 
ance is  favored  with  the  enlightened  approval  and 
earnest  sympathies. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Sir, 

"Your  obedient  servant, 

"Charles  Francis  Adams.5' 

The  attitude  of  the  General  Council  of  the  In- 
ternational Workingmen's  Association,  as  re- 
flected in  the  address  to  President  Lincoln,  did 
not,  however,  meet  with  the  approval  of  all  its 
sympathizers  in  the  United  States.  Among  those 
who  protested  against  it  were  especially  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Communist  Club  of  New  York,  who 
held  that  Lincoln's  policy  did  not  deserve  to  be 
thus  honored. 

2.   ADDRESS  OF  THE  GENERAL  COUNCIL  OF  THE 

INTERNATIONAL    WORKINGMEN'S    ASSOCIATION 

TO  PRESIDENT  ANDREW  JOHNSON. 

On  April  14,  1865,  Lincoln  was  fatally 
wounded  in  Ford's  Theatre  in  Washington  by  a 
shot  in  the  head  fired  by  the  actor,  John  Wilkes 
Booth.  He  died  the  next  morning.  At  the  same 
time  Southern  fanatics  attempted  to  kill  Secretary 
of  State  Seward  in  his  bed  and  dangerously 
wounded  him  and  his  son.  Vice-President  John- 
son succeeded  Lincoln  as  President  of  the  Union. 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  feeling  towards  the 
United  States  in  the  dominant  circles  of  England 


194         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

that  one  of  their  mouthpieces  in  the  press,  on  the 
arrival  of  the  news  of  Lincoln's  assassination, 
should  publish  the  following  significant  sugges- 
tion: "The  dagger  or  the  pistol  in  the  hands  of 
the  weakest  worm  that  crawls  in  human  shape 
upon  the  earth  can  change  the  destinies  of  nations 
or  divert  the  current  opinion  into  a  new  channel." 
And  immediately  following  this  sentence,  with- 
out any  transition,  the  paper  described  Lincoln's 
successor,  Andrew  Johnson,  as  a  "bloodthirsty 
scoundrel/'  as  the  scum  and  outcast  of  mankind, 
as  a  most  dangerous  tyrant.* 

It  was  of  course  only  the  most  rabid  element 
among  the  English  public  that  extolled  the  as- 
sassin Booth  as  a  champion  of  liberty,  as  a  worthy 
successor  of  Brutus  and  of  Tell,  while  on  the 
other  hand  a  large  portion  of  those  who  had 
hitherto  been  hostile  to  Lincoln  condemned 
Booth's  deed. 

On  the  report  of  Lincoln's  death,  the  General 
Council  of  the  International  Workingmen's  As- 
sociation resolved  to  send  another  address  to 
America,  this  time  to  the  successor  of  the  mur- 
dered President,  Andrew  Johnson.  The  address 
was  adopted  May  13th,  and  read  as  follows  :* 

*  Der  Deutsche   Eidgenosse.      London    and    Hamburg. 
1865,  p.  42. 

*  The  address  was  published  in  the  London  Beehive  of 
May  20,  1865.     It  has  been  impossible  to  procure  a  copy 
of  this  issue  of  the  Beehive,  and  the  author  of  the  present 
treatise   has   therefore   been  compelled  to   retranslate  the 


ADDRESS  TO  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON      195 

"Address    of    the    International    Workingmen's 

Association  to  President  Johnson. 
"To  Andrew  Johnson,  President  of  the  United 

States. 
"Dear  Sir: 

"The  demon  of  the  'peculiar  institution/  for 
whose  preservation  the  South  rose  in  arms,  did 
not  permit  its  devotees  to  suffer  honorable  de- 
feat on  the  open  battlefield.  What  had  been  con- 
ceived in  treason,  must  necessarily  end  in  infamy. 
As  Philip  II.'s  war  in  behalf  of  the  Inquisition 
produced  a  Gerard,  so  Jefferson  Davis's  rebellion 
a  Booth. 

"We  shall  not  seek  for  words  of  mourning  and 
of  horror  when  the  heart  of  two  continents  is 
throbbing  with  emotion.  Even  the  sycophants 
who  year  after  year  and  day  after  day  were  busily 
engaged  in  morally  stabbing  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  the  great  republic  of  which  he  was  the  head 
— even  they  are  dismayed  in  the  presence  of  this 
universal  outburst  of  popular  feeling  and  vie  with 
one  another  in  strewing  flowers  of  rhetoric  upon 
nis  open  grave.  They  have  at  last  come  to  rec- 
ognize that  he  was  a  man  whom  defeat  could  not 
dishearten,  nor  success  intoxicate,  who  imper- 
turbably  pressed  on  towards  his  great  goal  with- 


address  into  English  from  a  German  translation  of  it  to 
which  he  has  had  access.  The  wording  which  he  here 
submits  is  therefore  certain  not  to  correspond  with  the 
original  in  every  particular,  but  he  feels  that  he  can  vouch 
for  the  essential  accuracy  of  the  message  it  conveyed. 


196         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

out  ever  imperilling  it  by  blind  haste,  win  ad- 
vanced deliberately  and  never  retraced  a  step,  who 
was  never  carried  away  by  popular  favor  and 
never  discouraged  by  the  subsidence  of  popular 
enthusiasm,  who  answered  acts  of  severity  with 
the  sunbeams  of  a  loving  heart,  who  brightened 
gloomy  exhibitions  of  passion  by  the  smile  of 
humor,  and  who  accomplished  his  titanic  task  as 
simply  and  as  modestly  as  rulers  by  divine  right 
are  wont  to  do  trifling  things  with  great  pomp 
and  circumstance;  in  a  word,  he  was  one  of  those 
rare  men  who  succeed  in  becoming  great  with- 
out ceasing  to  be  good.  So  great,  indeed,  was 
the  modesty  of  this  great  and  good  man  that  the 
world  discovered  that  he  was  a  hero  only  when 
he  had  died  as  a  martyr. 

"To  be  chosen  at  the  side  of  such  a  leader  as 
the  second  victim  by  the  hellish  demons  of  slavery 
was  an  honor  of  which  Mr.  Seward  was  worthy. 
Was  he  not  in  a  period  of  general  indecision  so 
perspicacious  as  to  foresee  the  'irrepressible  con- 
flict' and  so  unterrified  as  to  foretell  it?  Did  he 
not  in  the  gloomiest  moments  of  this  conflict 
prove  himself  true  to  the  duty  of  the  Roman 
never  to  despair  of  the  republic  and  its  destiny? 
We  hope  with  all  our  heart  that  he  and  his  son 
will  be,  in  less  than  ninety  days,  restored  to 
health,  to  public  activity,  and  to  the  well-deserved 
honors  which  await  them. 

''After  a  gigantic  Civil  War  which,  if  we  con- 


ADDRESS  TO  PRESIDENT  JOHNSON      197 

sicler  its  colossal  extension  and  its  vast  scene  of 
action,  seems  in  comparison  with  the  Hundred 
Years'  War  and  the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  the 
Twenty-three  Years'  War  of  the  Old  World 
scarcely  to  have  lasted  ninety  days,  the  task,  Sir, 
devolves  upon  you  to  uproot  by  law  what  the 
sword  has  felled,  and  to  preside  over  the  more 
difficult  work  of  political  reconstruction  and  so- 
cial regeneration.  The  profound  consciousness 
of  your  great  mission  will  preserve  you  from  all 
weakness  in  the  execution  of  your  stern  duties. 
You  will  never  forget  that  the  American  people 
at  the  inauguration  of  the  new  era  of  the  eman- 
cipation of  labor  placed  the  burden  of  leadership 
on  the  shoulders  of  two  men  of  labor— Abraham 
Lincoln  the  one,  and  the  other  Andrew  Johnson. 

''Signed  in  the  name  of  the  International 
Workingmen's  Association  by  the  General  Coun- 
cil, May  13,  1865: 

"Charles  Kaub,  L.  Delle,  H.  Klimrosch,  M. 
Salbasella,  Edward  Coulson,  G.  Lochner,  I.'  Wes- 
ton,  G.  Ho  well,  F.  Lessner,  G.  Eccarius,  H.  Boll- 
ster,  Bordage,  C.  Pfander,  I.  Osborne,  B.  Luirass, 
A.  Valtien,  N.  P.  Stansen,  P.  Peterson,  I.  Buck- 
ley, R.  Shaw,  K.  Schapper,  A.  Janks,  P.  Fox,  I. 
H.  Longmaid,  M.  Morgan,  G.  L.  Wheeler,  I.  D. 
Nicass,  L.  C.  Vorley,  Dr.  Stainsby,  F.  Carter. 
E.  Holtorp,  Secretary  for  Poland ;  K.  Marx,  Sec- 
retary for  Germany;  H.  Jung,  Secretary  for 
Switzerland;  E.  Dupont,  Secretary  for  France; 


198         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

E.  Whitlock,  Financial  Secretary;    G.    Odgers, 
President;  W.  R.  Cremer,  General  Secretary." 

3.    ADDRESS  OF  THE  GENERAL  COUNCIL  TO  THE 
PEOPLE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

In  September,  1865,  the  International  met  in 
conference  in  London,  as  the  first  congress  of 
the  Association  which  was  to  have  taken  place  at 
this  time  in  Brussels  had  been  made  impossible 
by  the  action  of  the  Belgian  Government.  This 
London  conference  once  more  returned  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  of  slavery  and  resolved 
to  send  an  address  to  the  American  people.  The 
following  was  the  address : 

"Address  of  the  Conference  of  the  International 
Workingmen's  Association  of  September 

25,  1865. 
"To  the  People  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

"Citizens  of  the  Great  Republic,  once  more  we 
address  you,  not  in  sympathetic  condolence,  but 
in  words  of  congratulation. 

"Had  we  not  most  profoundly  sympathized 
with  you  in  your  times  of  trouble,  when  foes  with- 
in and  without  were  eagerly  bent  on  destroy- 
ing your  Government  and  the  principles  of  uni- 
versal justice  upon  which  it  is  based,  we  should 
not  now  venture  to  congratulate  you  upon  your 
success. 

"But  we  have  never  swerved  in  our  loyalty  to 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  U.S.    199 

your  cause,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  mankind; 
nor  did  we  ever  despair  of  its  final  triumph,  not 
even  in  the  darkest  shadows  of  its  mishaps. 

"In  firm  devotion  to,  and  unfaltering  faith  in, 
those  principles  of  equality  and '  fraternal  com- 
munion for  which  you  drew  the  sword,  we  were 
convinced  that  as  soon  as  the  conflict  should  be 
over  and  victory  won,  you  would  return  it  to  its 
scabbard,  and  peace  would  once  more  come  to 
your  country  and  joy  to  your  people. 

"Success  has  justified  our  expectations.  Your 
war  is  the  only  example  known  of  a  government 
fighting  against  a  fraction  of  its  own  citizens  for 
the  freedom  of  the  people. 

"Above  all  we  congratulate  you  upon  the  term- 
ination of  the  war  and  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  The  Stars  and  the  Stripes,  which  your 
own  sons  had  brutally  trampled  in  the  dust,  once 
more  flutter  in  the  breeze  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  never  again,  we  trust,  to  be  in- 
sulted by  your  own  children  and  never  again  to 
wave  over  bloody  battlefields,  whether  those  of 
domestic  insurrection  or  those  of  foreign  war. 

"And  may  those  misguided  citizens  who  dis- 
played so  much  valor  on  the  battlefield  in  a 
wicked  cause  now  display  as  much  zeal  in  helping 
to  heal  the  wounds  which  they  struck  and  in  re- 
storing peace  to  the  common  country. 

"Again  we  felicitate  you  upon  the  removal  of 
the  cause  of  these  years  of  affliction — upon  the 


200         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND   SLAVERY 

abolition  of  slavery.  This  stain  upon  your  other- 
wise so  shining  escutcheon  is  forever  wiped  out. 
Never  again  shall  the  hammer  of  the  auctioneer 
announce  in  your  market-places  sales  of  human 
flesh  and  blood  and  make  mankind  shudder  at  the 
cruel  barbarism. 

"Your  noblest  blood  was  shed  in  washing  away 
these  stains,  and  desolation  has  spread  its  black 
shroud  over  your  country  in  penance  for  the  past. 

"To-day  you  are  free,  purified  through  your 
sufferings.  A  brighter  future  is  dawning  upon 
your  glorious  republic,  proclaiming  to  the  old 
world  that  a  government  of  the  people  and  by 
the  people  is  a  government  for  the  people  and  not 
for  a  privileged  minority. 

"We  had  the  honor  to  express  to  you  our 
sympathy  in  your  affliction,  to  send  you  a  word 
of  encouragement  in  your  struggles,  and  to  con- 
gratulate you  upon  your  success.  Permit  us  to 
add  a  word  of  counsel  for  the  future. 

"Injustice  against  a  fraction  of  your  people 
having  been  followed  by  such  dire  consequences, 
put  an  end  to  it.  Declare  your  fellow  citizens 
from  this  day  forth  free  and  equal,  without  any 
reserve.  If  you  refuse  them  citizens'  rights  while 
you  exact  from  them  citizens'  duties,  you  will 
sooner  or  later  face  a  new  struggle  which  will 
once  more  drench  your  country  in  blood. 

"The  eyes  of  Europe  and  of  the  whole  world 
are  on  your  attempts  at  reconstruction,  and  foes 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  U.S.   201 

are  ever  ready  to  sound  the  death-knell  of  re- 
publican institutions  as  soon  as  they  see  their 
opportunity. 

"We  therefore  admonish  you,  as  brothers  in 
a  common  cause,  to  sunder  all  the  chains  of  free- 
dom, and  your  victory  will  be  complete." 

The  policy  of  conciliation  initiated  by  the 
American  Government  in  regard  to  the  South, 
and  the  adoption  of  the  constitutional  amend- 
ments affirming  the  political  equality  of  the  Ne- 
groes, were  steps  in  accordance  with  the  ad- 
dress which  the  conference  of  the  International 
Workingmen's  Association  directed  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT  DURING  THE  CIVIL 
WAR. 

1.    THE   DRAFT    RIOT   IN   NEW   YORK. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil 
War  had  the  immediate  effect  of  destroying  the 
labor  movement  in  the  United  States.  But  what 
it  had  destroyed,  it  soon  called  to  life  again.  The 
rise  in  the  price  of  all  food  products,  the  coinci- 
dent lowering  of  the  workingmen's  standard  of 
life,  the  scarcity  of  labor,  the  rapid  development 
of  industry  and  capitalism  accompanying  the  war, 
furnished  so  many  factors  favorable  to  a  revival 
and  rapid  rise  of  the  labor  movement.  For  the 
war  and  everything  connected  with  it  roused  the 
class  consciousness  of  the  American  workingmen 
and  the  feeling  of  class  division  in  society  to  a 
degree  unequalled  in  the  later  history  of  the 
American  labor  movement. 

The  revival  of  the  labor  movement  during  the 
war,  and  the  intensified  struggle  of  the  working- 
men  for  the  betterment  of  their  lot,  challenged 
the  opposition  of  the  capitalists,  who  resisted  with 
all  their  might  the  demand  of  the  workingmen  for 


THE  DRAFT  RIOT  IN  NEW  YORK        203 

shorter  hours  and  for  an  increase  in  their  wages 
to  meet  the  enhanced  prices  of  their  necessities. 
While  the  Northern  armies,  largely  recruited 
from  among  the  wage  earners  all  over  the  coun- 
try, were  waging  the  war  that  was  destined  to 
abolish  Negro  slavery,  and  while  the  Northern 
capitalists  were  enriching  themselves  at  the  ex- 
pense of  this  war,  the  latter  on  their  part  were 
conducting  a  campaign  in  the  North  against  the 
white  workingmen  in  an  endeavor  to  force  them 
into  an  economic  condition  which,  from  a  purely 
economic  point  of  view,  did  not  materially  differ 
from  the  condition  of  the  Negroes  in  the  South. 
It  was  the  capitalists'  aim  during  the  war  against 
black  slavery  to  fortify,  by  all  possible  means, 
white  slavery. 

To  achieve  this  end,  they  undertook  to  destroy 
the  trade  unions  which  the  workingmen  had  or- 
ganized. They  sought  to  do  this  partly  through 
their  economic  power,  partly  by  passing  laws 
against  labor  organizations  in  the  legislatures, 
and  partly,  also,  as  we  shall  see,  by  availing 
themselves  of  the  forces  which  had  been  called 
to  arms  for  the  destruction  of  Negro  slavery  and 
the  preservation  of  the  Union,  for  the  purpose 
of  fortifying  wage  slavery  and  turning  these 
forces  against  the  workingmen  and  their  unions. 

The  class  antagonisms  between  capitalists  and 
workingmen  during  the  war  found  expression 
not  only  in  the  direct  struggles  for  higher  wages 


204         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

and  shorter  hours,  but  they  manifested  themselves 
on  all  other  occasions.  As  is  always  the  case, 
the  ruling  class,  through  the  legislatures,  sought 
to  unload  all  burdens  from  their  own  shoulders 
upon  those  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  This 
was  true  not  only  in  regard  to  the  financial 
burdens,  but  also  in  regard  to  the  burdens  of 
blood. 

Early  in  the  year  1863,  when,  after  harj 
struggles,  the  end  of  the  war  seemed  still  far  off, 
and  some  difficulty  was  found  in  securing  the 
necessary  volunteers  for  the  army,  a  law  was 
passed  in  Congress  which  authorized  the  draft- 
ing of  citizens  for  the  army.  The  attempted  en- 
forcement of  this  law  led  to  disturbances  in  the 
city  of  New  York  which  cost  hundreds  of  lives 
and  for  days  provoked  bloody  encounters  be- 
tween the  police  and  military  and  the  insurgent 
masses  of  workingmen.  In  New  York  political 
opponents  of  the  war  and  secret  friends  of  the 
slaveholders  were  especially  active.  They  took 
the  draft  as  a  pretext  for  inflaming  the  mass  of 
their  followers,  consisting  principally  of  Irish 
unskilled  laborers,  against  the  war  and  later 
also  against  the  cause  of  the  Union  itself.  The 
execution  of  the  draft  was  entrusted  to  Federal 
provosts,  an  act  which  was  represented  by  the 
Democrats  as  a  violation  of  State  rights.  The 
majority  of  the  metropolitan  newspapers  op- 
posed the  enforcement  of  the  draft.  When  its 


THE  DRAFT  RIOT  IN  NEW  YORK        205 

execution  was  undertaken,  on  July  13,  1863,  it 
met  everywhere  with  resistance.  Workmen  who 
were  engaged  in  tearing  down  a  building  were 
requested  by  Federal  provosts  to  give  their  names 
for  the  draft.  They  refused  and  drove  away 
the  officers  by  force.  The  movement  spread  over 
the  whole  city.  Everywhere  there  was  a  congre- 
gation of  excited  crowds.  The  mobs  visited  the 
workshops  and  factories  and  compelled  the  men 
to  stop  work  and  join  them.  Prominent  police 
officers  were  attacked  by  force  and  barely  es- 
caped with  their  lives.  Offices  where  the  draft- 
ing officers  were  at  work  were  stormed,  the  lists 
of  names  were  destroyed,  and  the  houses  set 
on  fire.  Firemen  were  forcibly  prevented  from 
putting  out  the  flames.  Telegraph  wires  were 
cut.  Incendiarism  was  followed  by  plunder. 
Numerous  houses  were  sacked,  street  cars  and 
omnibuses  ceased  running,  stores  on  Broadway, 
the  avenues  and  throughout  the  greater  portion 
of  the  city  were  closed. 

These  disturbances,  which  were  at  first  di- 
rected only  against  the  enforcement  of  the  draft, 
were  within  a  few  days  turned  against  the  un- 
fortunate Negroes.  The  cause  of  the  war,  and 
hence  of  the  draft,  they  incurred  the  hatred  of 
the  masses,  and  it  seems  as  if  there  had  been  a 
deliberate  deflection  of  the  mob's  fury  against 
them.  The  Negroes  were  disliked  by  the  un- 
skilled workmen  of  New  York,  also  for  the  rea- 


206         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

son  that  on  various  occasions  they  had  been  em- 
ployed by  the  capitalists  as  strike-breakers  in 
putting  down  the  labor  troubles.  They  had  made 
themselves  especially  offensive  in  a  strike  of  the 
longshoremen  in  New  York  harbor,  who  were 
mostly  Irishmen.  The  Negroes'  dwellings  were 
set  on  fire,  and  a  number  of  them  were  killed. 
The  disturbances  assumed  a  hostile  attitude  to 
the  Union.  Attempts  were  made  to  storm  the 
buildings  of  Abolitionist  newspapers,  especially 
the  Tribune,  and  the  private  residence  of  Horace 
Greeley.  Cheers  were  heard  for  Jefferson  Davis, 
the  President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

From  the  start  the  police  had  met  the  riotous 
masses  with  terrible  brutality,  using  their  clubs 
indiscriminately.  The  rage  of  the  people  would 
certainly  not  have  reached  the  proportions  it  did 
if  they  had  not  been  so  fiendishly  treated  by  the 
police.  In  the  beginning  "the  mob  simply  de- 
sired to  break  up  the  draft  in  some  of  the  upper 
districts  of  the  city  and  destroy  the  registers  in 
which  certain  names  were  enrolled,"  according 
to  a  contemporary  pamphlet*  written  in  praise 
of  the  police.  But  the  terrible  treatment  of  the 
masses,  and  the  frightful  bloodshed,  first  by  the 
police,  then  by  the  military  summoned  from  Fort 
Hamilton,  West  Point  and  other  outlying  gar- 
risons, drove  the  masses  far  beyond  the  original 
scope  of  the  movement.  On  the  west  side  barri- 


*S.  F.  Headley:    The  Great  Riots  of  New  York.    1873. 


THE  DRAFT  RIOT  IN  NEW  YORK        207 

cades  were  erected,  whereupon  the  soldiers  fired 
volleys  into  the  crowds  and  dispersed  them  by 
shells.  The  police  ordered  to  attack  the  people 
were  told  to  make  no  arrests;  the  military  were 
under  like  instructions.  Whoever  came  in  their 
way  was  clubbed  or  shot  down.  The  soldiers 
fired  so  recklessly  that  they  even  hit  policemen. 

The  disturbances  lasted  from  Monday  until 
Friday.  More  than  fifty  buildings  were  burned. 
The  loss  in  property  was  estimated  at  $1,200,000. 
The  number  of  persons  killed  by  the  police  and 
the  military  was  variously  estimated  at  from  400 
or  500  to  1,200  (Headley).  As  the  bodies  of 
the  dead  were  in  most  cases  removed  by  their 
relatives,  the  exact  number  could  not  be  ascer- 
tained. Eleven  Negroes  and  seven  other  men 
were  killed  by  the  rioters.  Only  three  policemen 
came  to  their  death,  but  many  were  wounded  by 
stones  and  other  missiles.  The  enormous  differ- 
ence in  the  number  of  killed  among  the  masses 
and  among  the  armed  forces  shows  what  little 
justification  there  was  for  this  terrible  slaughter 
in  the  ranks  of  the  workingmen.  How  small 
was  the  number  of  prisoners  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  only  nineteen  persons  were  sentenced 
by  the  courts  for  participation  in  this  riot,  which 
had  been  accompanied  by  bloodshed,  incendiar- 
ism and  plunder. 

Now  the  cause  of  this  Draft  Riot  in  New 
York  was  exclusively  social.    It  arose  from  the 


208    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

fact  that  the  propertied  class,  with  all  the  force 
of  its  economic  and  political  prestige,  attempted 
to  unload  the  hloQ^-tax  which  the  war  demanded 
from  its  own  shoulders  on  to  those  of  the  work- 
ing class.  The  draft  law  as  passed  by  Congress 
provided  that  anyone  could  secure  exemption 
from  military  service  by  the  payment  of  $300. 
In  this  way  the  rich  man,  to  whom  this  small  sum 
meant  nothing,  was  virtually  exempt  from  mili- 
tary duty,  a  discrimination  between  the  classes 
which  was  deeply  resented  as  an  injustice  by 
those  who  could  not  raise  the  money.  According 
to  Headley: 

"Most  of  those  drawn  were  laboring  men  or 
poor  mechanics,  who  were  unable  to  hire  a  sub- 
stitute   If  a  well-known  name,  that  of  a 

man  of  wealth,  was  among  the  number,  it  only 
increased  the  exasperation,  for  the  law  exempted 
everyone  drawn  who  would  pay  three  hundred 
dollars  towards  a  substitute.  This  was  taking 
practically  the  whole  number  of  soldiers  called 
for  out  of  the  laboring  classes.  A  great  propor- 
tion of  these  being  Irish,  it  naturally  became  an 
Irish  question  and  eventually  an  Irish  riot."* 

The  social  and  class  character  of  the  Draft 
Riot  is  here  most  clearly  presented.  The  muni- 
cipal authorities  seem  to  have  recognized  this 
too,  although  political  motives  may  also  have 
entered  into  it.  On  the  fourth  day  of  the  riot 


*  Headley,  p.  149. 


THE  DRAFT  RIOT  IN  NEW  YORK        209 

it  was  announced  that  the  draft  had  been  sus- 
pended, and  the  City  Council  had  passed  an  or- 
dinance appropriating  $2,500,000  toward  pay- 
ing $300  exemption  money  to  the  poor  who 
might  be  drafted.  But  as  in  the  meantime 
10,000  soldiers  had  been  concentrated  in  New 
York,  and  the  force  of  the  riot  had  been  spent, 
the  process  of  drafting  continued  nevertheless. 

As  already  stated,  the  principal  participants  in 
these  encounters  were  Irish  workingmen.  This 
fact  was  due  to  their  affiliation  with  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  which  favored  slavery.  The  nu- 
merous German  workingmen  in  the  city  took  no 
part  in  the  disturbances.  They  rather  held  them- 
selves aloof,  because  in  the  main  they  sided  with 
the  opponents  of  slavery. 

The  riots  were  followed  by  a  number  of  large 
mass  meetings  in  New  York  which,  in  the  name 
of  the  working  class,  protested  against  the  senti- 
ments and  expressions  hostile  to  the  Union  on 
the  part  of  a  fraction  of  workingmen  during  the 
disturbances.  It  was  fortunate  for  the  Union's 
cause  that  the  majority  of  the  workingmen  of 
New  York,  in  those  July  days  of  1863,  did  not 
make  common  cause  with  the  Irishmen  who  had 
been  driven  to  riot  and  revolt  by  the  injustice 
done  them  by  the  property  holders  and  the  legis- 
lature. For  though  the  crisis  of  the  war  had  just 
been  passed  by  the  victories  of  Gettysburg  and 
Vicksburg,  the  South  was  at  the  time  exerting 


210    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

its  utmost  strength,  and  the  Union  was  still  in 
a  dangerous  position.  A  successful  revolt  in 
New  York  might  in  those  days  have  been  fol- 
lowed by  consequences  which  one  trembles  to 
contemplate,  especially  if  the  menacing  attitude 
of  the  foreign  powers,  and  particularly  of  Eng- 
land, is  considered.  The  Union  would  have 
fallen  on  evil  days  had  not  the  American  and  the 
German  workingmen  of  the  city  of  New  York 
at  that  time  exalted  its  cause  above  that  of  their 
own  class. 

2.     LAWS   AGAINST   LABOR   ORGANIZATIONS. 

It  took  a  long  time  before  the  standard  of  life, 
which  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  had  been 
lowered  by  the  depreciation  of  the  paper  cur- 
rency and  the  high  prices  of  the  necessaries  of 
life,  was  again  raised  by  the  struggles  and  the 
organized  efforts  of  the  workingmen.  Even  in 
January,  1864,  three  years  after  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  Sylvis  referred  to  the  impaired  con- 
dition of  the  workingmen  incident  to  the  war 
in  the  following  words : 

"Go  with  me  to  the  magnificent  cotton  mills 
of  the  Eastern  States,  and  I  will  show  you  a 
picture  such  as  you  have  never  seen.  A  few 
years  ago  men  received  fair  wages  in  these  mills, 
and  were  able  to  live  comfortably  from  their 
earnings,  and  to  raise  and  educate  their  children 
well ;  but  now,  by  this  downward  tendency  of  the 


LAWS   AGAINST   LABOR   UNIONS        211 

price  of  labor,  by  this  gradual  reduction  of 
wages,  it  requires  the  combined  labor  of  the  hus- 
band, wife  and  every  child  old  enough  to  walk 
to  the  factory,  for  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hours 
a  day,  to  earn  sufficient  to  keep  body  and  soul  to- 
gether."* 

The  year  1864  witnessed  redoubled  efforts  on 
the  part  of  the  American  working  class  to  re- 
gain the  position  it  had  occupied  previous  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  war.  New  organizations  and 
workingmen's  demonstrations  of  various  kinds 
were  daily  occurrences.  The  capitalists  of  the 
North,  made  haughty  by  the  enormous  power 
which  had  come  to  them  in  the  last  few  years, 
combined  to  hold  down  the  labor  movement  and 
to  depress  wages  to  a  starvation  level.  It  was 
the  fixed  purpose  of  the  capitalists  of  the  coun- 
try to  destroy  all  labor  organizations.  One  of 
'these  capitalists,  more  honest  than  the  rest,  said 
to  Sylvis: 

"The  day  is  not  far  distant  when  the  condi- 
tion of  the  workingmen  will  be  far  worse  than 
ever  before.  The  day  will  come  when  men  who 
are  now  active  in  the  labor  union  movement  will 
be  forced  upon  their  bended  knees  to  beg  for 

work A  spirit  of  retaliation  has  been 

aroused  in  the  bosom  of  every  employer,  the 
fruits  of  which  are  being  manifested  in  the  wide- 
spread and  universal  organization  of  capitalists 


*  Sylvis,  pp.  104-105. 


212         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

for  the  avowed  and  publicly  proclaimed  purpose 
of  destroying  your  unions."* 

In  the  youthful  exuberance  of  their  class  rule 
the  attitude  of  the  capitalists  towards  their 
world ngmen  was  so  arrogant  that  even  Amer- 
ican judges,  not  yet  completely  corrupted  by 
capitalism,  as  in  later  years,  raised  their  voice 
in  rebuke  of  it.  It  was  at  this  time  that  a  certain 
Judge  Til  ford,  while  denouncing  an  attempt  at 
a  reduction  of  wages,  said: 

"It  cannot  and  must  not  be.  By  the  laws  of 
ancient  Rome,  a  convicted  traitor  was  hurled 
from  the  Tarpeian  Rock.  Let  the  man  who,  in 
this  crisis,  advocates  the  reduction  of  wages,  'or 
the  subjugation  of  labor  to  the  whims  and 
caprices  of  the  wealthy,  by  denying  to  labor  the 
right  to  regulate  its  own  affairs/  be  girdled  and 
encircled  with  burning  fagots,  and  receive  the 
fate  of  the  Roman  felon."f 

But  neither  the  opposition  of  the  workingmen 
nor  voices  from  their  own  ranks,  such  as  that 
of  Judge  Til  ford,  could  shake  the  capitalists  in 
their  resolution  to  destroy  the  organizations  of 
the  workingmen.  They  were  not  satisfied  with 
their  own  activity  in  this  direction,  but  invoked 
J  the  assistance  of  the  State.  In  the  spring  of 
1864  laws  were  introduced  in  the  Legislatures  in 
New  York,  Massachusetts  and  other  States, 


*  Sylvis,  pp.  132-133. 
t  Sylvis,  p.  131. 


LAWS   AGAINST   LABOR   UNIONS        213 

termed  laws  against  intimidation,  but  really  so 
drawn  as  practically  to  destroy  all  trade-union 
organizations.  The  bill  presented  in  the  New 
York  Assembly  read  as  follows : 

"An  Act  to  Punish  Unlawful  Interference  With 
Employers  and  Employees. 

"The  People  of  the  State  of  New  York,  rep- 
resented in  the  Senate  and  Assembly,  do  enact  as 
follows : 

"Section  I.  Any  person  who  shall  himself, 
or  in  combination  with  any  other  person  or  per- 
sons, by  force  or  threats  of  any  kind,  either 

"1.  Prevent  or  deter,  or  attempt  to  prevent 
or  deter,  any  other  person  or  persons  from  en- 
gaging or  continuing  in  any  lawful  employment, 
labor  or  undertaking,  in  such  manner  and  upon 
such  terms  as  he  or  they  may  choose  or  accept; 

"2.  Prevent  or  deter,  or  attempt  to  prevent  or 
deter,  any  other  person  or  persons  from  employ- 
ing such  workmen,  laborers  or  employees  that  he 
or  they  desire  to  employ,  and  in  such  manner  and 
on  such  terms  as  he  or  they  may  choose  or  ac- 
cept, shall  be  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor. 

"Section  II.  Any  person  who  shall  himself, 
or  in  combination  with  any  other  person  or  per- 
sons, commit  either  of  the  offences  described  in 
the  first  section  of  this  act,  shall  be  guilty  of  a 
misdemeanor. 

"Section  III.  [This  provides  a  punishment  for 
persons  convicted  under  the  above  sections 


214         LINCOLN,    LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

by  imprisonment  in  the  county  jail,  not  exceeding 
one  year,  or  by  fine  not  exceeding  $250,  or  by 
both  such  fine  and  imprisonment.] 

"Section  IV.  This  act  shall  take  effect  im- 
mediately/' 

The  primary  object  of  the  introduction  of  this 
bill  was  the  breaking  up  of  the  Moulders'  and 
Machinists'  and  Blacksmiths'  Union  in  New 
York  State,  but  its  provisions  were  such  that,  had 
it  become  a  law,  every  trade  organization  in  New 
York  would  have  been  crushed  out  of  existence. 

But  the  workingmen  of  New  York  recognized 
the  danger  that  threatened  them.  The  introduc- 
tion of  that  bill  in  the  Legislature  provoked 
among  the  entire  working  class  of  the  State  such 
widespread  resentment  as  had  seldom  been  seen. 
In  countless  meetings  all  over  the  State  they  pro- 
tested so  resolutely  against  this  bill  that  the 
legislators  did  not  dare  to  pass  it  and  declined  to 
entertain  it. 

A  similar  bill  was  introduced  in  the  Legisla- 
ture of  Massachusetts  and  passed  by  one  of  its 
houses.  But,  as  in  New  York,  the  workingmen 
of  Massachusetts  were  aroused.  In  a  great 
demonstration  the  workingmen  of  Boston  op- 
posed the  bill,  with  the  result  that  it  was  buried 
in  one  of  the  legislative  committees.  That  the 
laws  of  the  State  should  impede  or  paralyze  all 
attempts  to  improve  their  lot  was  frustrated  by 
the  vigilance  of  the  workingmen. 


3.     MILITARY    INTERFERENCE   IN    LABOR 
TROUBLES. 

The  young  American  bourgeoisie  were  not 
satisfied  with  enlisting  in  its  fight  against  the 
rising  labor  movement,  their  own  economic 
power  and  that  of  the  legislature,  but  they  also 
pressed  into  their  service  the  military  forces  and 
employed  the  army  which  had  lately  been  fight- 
ing Negro  slavery  to  fortify  the  slavery  of  the 
white  workingmen. 

On  the  tenth  day  of  March,  1864,  a  strike  took 
place  among  the  laborers  at  Cold  Springs,  N.  Y. 
These  men  were  in  the  employ  of  R.  P.  Parrott, 
who  was  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  shot, 
shell,  etc.,  for  the  Government.  The  men  were 
receiving  from  a  dollar  to  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
a  day.  Owing  to  the  very  large  advance  in  the 
prices  of  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  they  made 
the  request  that  their  wages  should  be  advanced 
to  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day.  This  was  refused, 
and  a  strike  was  the  consequence.  Two  days 
after  the  strike  took  place,  four  of  the  strikers 
were  arrested  and  sent  to  Fort  Lafayette,  where 
they  remained  for  seven  weeks,  when  they  were 
liberated  without  a  trial,  although  a  trial  was  de- 
manded. Two  companies  of  United  States 
soldiers  were  ordered  to  Cold  Springs  and  mar- 
tial law  was  proclaimed,  and  the  men  forced  to 
resume  work  at  the  old  prices.  Three  of  these 
poor  men,  who  were  robbed  of  seven  weeks  of 


216    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

their  time,  and  confined  in  prison  for  no  offence 
other  than  exercising  their  right  to  refuse  to  work 
at  a  lower  price  than  they  were  pleased  to  ask— 
were  not  permitted  to  return  to  their  homes, 
were  driven  from  their  abiding  places,  exiled  in 
a  free  land,  and  their  families  forced  from  the 
town.* 

Even  worse  than  in  the  North  was  the  state 
of  things  towards  the  Southern  border  line, 
where  martial  law  had  superseded  civil  law.  In 
St.  Louis,  in  April,  1864,  two  strikes  occurred, 
one  by  the  tailors,  the  other  by  the  machinists 
and  blacksmiths.  As,  in  part  at  least,  the  produc- 
tion of  articles  used  in  equipping  the  army  was 
involved  in  this  strike,  the  capitalists  of  the  city 
saw  in  it  a  good  chance  to  bring  the  working- 
men  to  terms.  On  the  strength  of  martial  law 
they  demanded  military  interference  in  the  strike 
on  the  part  of  the  commanding  general  of  the 
district,  and  their  request  was  but  too  readily 
complied  with.  On  the  twenty-ninth  day  of 
April,  1864,  the  following  order  was  issued: 
"General  Order  No.  65. 

"Headquarters  Department  of  the  State  of 
Missouri, 

"St.  Louis,  April  26,  1864. 
"It  having  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Com- 
manding General  that  combinations  exist  in  the 

*  Sylvis,  pp.  137-138. 


INTERFERENCE  IN  LABOR  TROUBLES  217 

city  of  St.  Louis,  having  for  their  object  to  pre- 
vent journeymen  mechanics,  apprentices  and  la- 
borers, from  working  in  manufacturing  estab- 
lishments, except  on  terms  prescribed  to  the  pro- 
prietors thereof  by  parties  not  interested  therein, 
which  terms  have  no  relation  to  the  matter  of 
wages  to  be  paid  to  employees,  but  to  the  internal 
management  of  such  establishments;  and  it  ap- 
pearing that,  in  consequence  of  such  combina- 
tions and  the  practices  of  those  concerned  in 
them,  the  operations  of  some  establishments 
where  articles  are  produced  which  are  required 
for  use  in  the  navigation  of  the  Western  waters, 
and  in  the  military,  naval  and  transport  service 
of  the  United  States,  have  been  broken  up,  and 
the  production  of  such  articles  stopped  or  sus- 
pended; the  following  order  is  promulgated. 
Any  violation  thereof  will  be  punished  as  a  mili- 
tary offence : 

"I.  No  person  shall,  directly  or  indirectly,  at- 
tempt to  deter  or  prevent  any  other  person  from 
working  on  such  terms  as  he  may  agree  upon  in 
any  maun factur ing  establishment  where  any  ar- 
ticle is  ordinarily  made  which  may  be  required 
for  use  in  the  navigation  of  the  Western  waters, 
or  in  the  military,  naval  or  transport  service  of 
the  United  States. 

"II.  No  person  shall  watch  around  or  hang 
about  any  such  establishment  for  the  purpose  of 


218         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

annoying  employees  thereof,  or  learning  who  are 
employed  therein. 

"III.  No  association  or  combination  shall  be 
formed  or  continued,  or  meeting  be  held,  having 
for  its  object  to  prescribe  to  the  proprietors  of 
any  such  establishment  whom  they  shall  employ 
therein,  or  how  they  shall  conduct  the  operation 
thereof. 

"IV.  All  employees  in  such  establishment 
will  be  protected  by  military  authority  against  all 
attempts  by  any  person  to  interfere  with  or  an- 
noy them  in  their  work,  or  in  consequence  of 
their  being  engaged  in  it. 

"V.  The  proprietors  of  every  such  establish- 
ment in  the  county  of  St.  Louis  will  forthwith 
transmit  to  the  office  of  the  Provost-Marshal 
General  the  names  of  all  persons  who  have,  since 
the  15th  day  of  March,  1864,  left  their  employ  to 
engage  in  any  such  combination  or  association  as 
that  above  referred  to;  or  have  been  induced  to 
leave  by  the  operations  of  any  such  combination 
or  association,  or  by  the  individual  efforts  con- 
cerned therein.  The  places  of  residence  of  such 
persons,  as  far  as  known,  will  be  stated,  together 
with  a  list,  by  name,  of  all  who  have  taken  an  ac- 
tive part  in  any  combination  or  effort  to  control 
the  conduct  of  any  such  establishment,  or  to  pre- 
vent persons  from  working  therein. 

"VI.  The  port  commander,  Colonel  J.  H. 
Baker,  10th  Minnesota  Volunteers,  is  charged 


INTERFERENCE  IN  LABOR  TROUBLES  219 

under  the  direction  of  the  district  commander 
with  the  execution  of  this  order.  All  persons  ap- 
plying for  the  aid  of  the  military  forces  in  this 
connection  will  report  direct  to  Colonel  Baker. 

"VII.  In  putting  down  this  attack  upon  priv- 
ate rights  and  the  military  power  of  the  nation 
by  organizations  led  by  bad  men,  the  General 
confidently  relies  upon  the  support  and  aid  of  the 
city  authorities,  and  of  all  right-minded  men. 

"By  command  of  Major-General  Rosecrans. 
"O.  D.  Greene, 

Assistant  Adjutant  General. 
"Frank  Eno, 

Assistant  Adjutant  General." 

Several  members  of  the  two  unions  concerned 
were  arrested,  and  an  intense  excitement  of  the 
workers  of  St.  Louis,  silent,  to  be  sure,  but  none 
the  less  intense  on  that  account,  was  the  result. 
A  demonstration  by  the  workingmen  against  this 
invasion  of  their  rights  could  not  be  made,  be- 
cause the  city  was  ruled  by  martial  law.  A  peti- 
tion, numerously  signed,  asking  for  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  order,  was  presented  to  the  General, 
but  without  effect.* 

A  month  later  exactly  similar  occurrences  took 
place  in  Louisville,  Ky.  Here,  too,  there  was  a 
strike,  and  Brigadier-General  Burbridge  issued 
an  order  literally  identical  with  the  one  in  St. 
Louis,  making  an  end  to  the  efforts  of  the  work- 


*  Sylvis,  p.  135. 


220    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

ingmen  to  better  their  condition.  It  was  openly 
charged  against  General  Burbridge  that  he  "was 
in  the  confidence  of  the  employers,  aware  of  their 
plans  and  objects,  and  that  he  was  actuated  by 
the  most  selfish  and  dishonorable  motives."* 

Sylvis,  who  discussed  all  these  cases  in  a 
speech,  in  January,  1865,  at  the  convention  of  his 
trade  organization,  concluded  with  the  remark 
that  he  had  "selected  these  cases  from  among 
many,  such  as  the  breaking  up  of  the  Miners' 
Association,  in  the  Eastern  coal  fields,  by  govern- 
ment interference;  the  defeat  of  the  Reading 
Railroad  engineers  by  the  same  means;  the  con- 
fiscation of  the  back  pay  of  the  moulders  in  the 
Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  "who  struck  for  higher 
wages."f 

From  out  of  the  midst  of  the  working  class 
only  scattered  voices  were  raised  in  protest 
against  this  exhibition  of  violence  on  the  part 
of  the  Government.  The  organization  of  labor 
was  still  in  its  infancy  and  far  too  weak  and 
vague  to  take  a  determined  stand  against  these 
abuses  of  authority.  It  was  but  natural  that  in 
the  course  of  the  Civil  War  every  step  which  had 
the  appearance  of  being  against  the  Government 
in  Washington  was  interpreted  as  a  step  hostile 
to  the  Union,  as  a  menace  to  its  preservation,  as 
an  encouragement  of  the  rebellious  South. 


*  Sylvis,  p.  137. 
t  Sylvis,  p.  140. 


INTERFERENCE  IN  LABOR  TROUBLES  221 

Every  move  of  the  workingmen  which  in  any 
way  discommoded  the  Government  was  branded 
by  the  ruling  class  of  the  North  as  treason  against 
the  country;  and  as  every  attempt  of  the  work- 
ingmen was  regarded  by  this  class  as  a  molesta- 
tion of  the  Government,  they  denounced  every 
independent  act,  especially  every  attempt  to 
secure  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours,  which 
threatened  to  disturb  the  customary  course  of 
things,  as  an  act  of  hostility  against  the  Union. 
This  state  of  things  had  to  be  carefully  con- 
sidered by  the  workingmen  in  their  organization, 
their  struggles  and  their  demands.  It  was  prob- 
ably owing  to  these  circumstances  that  Sylvis, 
among  others,  was  willing  to  exculpate  the  Ad- 
ministration, as  most  likely  not  well  informed  in 
the  matter,  from  responsibility  for  the  abuse  of 
military  power  in  regard  to  labor  troubles. 

Sylvis,  moreover,  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the 
working  class  of  the  country  had  proved  their 
loyalty  to  the  Union  during  the  entire  course  of 
the  war.  He  said: 

"I  presume  it  is  hardly  necessary  for  me  to 
enter  into  any  arguments  to  prove  that  the  work- 
ingmen, the  great  body  of  the  people,  the  bone 
and  muscle  of  the  nation,  the  very  pillars  of  our 
temple  of  liberty,  are  loyal ;  that,  I  take  it,  would 
be  sheer  mockery,  would  be  adding  insult  to  in- 
jury: for  the  evidences  of  our  loyalty  we  need 
only  point  to  the  history  of  the  war;  to  the  fact, 


222         LINCOLN,   LABOR    AND    SLAVERY 

that  while  armed  treason  and  rebellion  threatened 
our  institutions  with  destruction,  while  the  proud 
and  opulent  of  the  land  were  plotting  the  down- 
fall of  our  Government,  the  toiling  millions  stood 
like  a  wall  of  adamant  between  it  and  the  destruc- 
tive element  of  revolution,  between  the  country 
and  all  its  foes."* 

But  while  Sylvis  emphasized  the  loyalty  of  the 
working  class  of  the  North  towards  the  Union, 
his  remarks  left  no  doubt  that  the  invasions  of 
the  capitalists  and  their  Government  upon  the 
workingmen  had  bred  a  profound  irritation  in 
their  ranks.  He  declared: 

"These  outrages  upon  the  rights  of  the  people 
have  created  a  profound  sensation,  have  made 
impressions  that  can  never  be  erased.  It  is  true 
that  the  muttering  thunders  of  the  confined  vol- 
cano were  scarcely  audible  above  the  surface,  but 
they  were  none  the  less  deep  because  in  secret,  "f 

The  workingmen  had  not  hitherto  resented  the 
haughty  treatment  to  which  the  ruling  classes 
were  subjecting  them,  and  Sylvis  showed  beyond 
a  doubt  that  this  was  due  exclusively  to  the  ex- 
ceptional circumstances  then  prevailing.  "Let 
those,"  he  explained,  "who  would  trample  under 
foot  the  rights  of  the  working  people  of  this  na- 
tion, beware.  I  have  wished  to  show  to  the 
country,  and  especially  to  those  in  authority,  how 


*  Sylvis,  p.  140. 

t  Sylvis,  pp.  140-141. 


INTERFERENCE  IN  LABOR  TROUBLES  223 

near  we  have  been  to  scenes  that  would  appall 
the  stoutest  heart.  In  ordinary  times  a  collision 
would  have  been  inevitable;  nothing  but  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  people,  and  their  desire  in  no  way 
to  embarrass  the  Government,  prevented  it.  But 
'there  is  a  point  where  forbearance  ceases  to  be 
a  virtue/ — that  point  may  be  reached."* 
And  in  another  place  Sylvis  declares : 
"If  the  doctrines  and  principles  promulgated 
and  taught  by  the  advocates  of  union  among 
workingmen,  and  the  efforts  of  those  engaged  in 
this  movement  to  secure  to  labor  the  fruits  of  its 
toil,  and  the  full  enjoyment  of  all  the  blessings  of 
an  enlightened  civilization,  will  produce  a  colli- 
sion, let  it  come."f 

We  note  that  the  conflict  between  the  interests 
of  the  working  class  and  the  interests  of  the  agi- 
tation in  behalf  of  Negro  emancipation  which 
made  itself  felt  at  the  inception  of  the  Abolition- 
ist movement,  and  which  is  traceable  throughout 
the  entire  course  of  the  movement  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  Negro  slavery,  was  still  in  evidence  when 
force  took  command  of  things,  and  the  bloody 
struggle  filled  the  last  page  of  the  history  of  this 
movement.  And  as  it  is  a  glorious  page  in  the 
history  of  American  workingmen  that  notwith- 
standing this  conflict  of  interests  they  neverthe- 
less on  the  whole  always  supported  the  demand 


*  Sylvis,  p.  141. 
t  Sylvis,  p.  131. 


224    LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

for  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery,  and  that  al- 
though they  lacked  the  insight  of  the  historic 
necessity  of  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery  as 
a  condition  precedent  to  their  own  emancipation, 
they  never  failed  to  regard  slavery  as  a  blot  on 
their  country;  so  it  is  also  a  glorious  page  in  their 
history  that  notwithstanding  the  most  outrageous 
provocation  on  the  part  of  the  ruling  class  and 
the  Government  during  the  Civil  War,  they  never 
wavered  in  exalting  the  cause  of  the  Union  over 
their  own  cause  and  their  class  interests.  The 
United  States  owes  it  in  a  large  measure  to  the 
attitude  of  the  working  class  that  it  passed  the 
crisis  in  those  dark  days  with  comparative  ease. 

4.    WHITE  SLAVERY. 

The  war  closed  after  Lincoln  had  died  by  the 
assassin's  hand.  Negro  slavery  had  ceased  to 
exist.  But  the  close  of  the  war  for  Negro  eman- 
cipation was  followed  by  a  state  of  things  which 
the  white  workingmen  of  the  North  could  not 
feel  otherwise  than  as  a  state  of  aggravated  white 
slavery. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  more  than  a  million 
men  returned  to  the  labor  market.  Wages  were 
still  paid  in  paper  currency,  while  the  price  of 
commodities  was  fixed  by  the  gold  standard. 
With  a  gold  rate  of  153  at  the  end  of  the  war, 
$3  in  wages  was  equivalent  to  only  $2  before  the 
war.  Despite  the  apparent  increase  in  wages  the 


WHITE    SLAVERY  225 

workingman  was  comparatively  worse  off  in  1865 
than  in  1860.  The  price  of  flour,  which  in  1860 
was  from  $6  to  $8  per  barrel,  had  risen  in  1865 
from  $16  to  $20  per  barrel.  Meat  had  risen 
from  three  to  four  times  its  price  before  the  war. 
Previous  to  1860  one  could  buy  more  with  $1 
than  with  $3  six  years  later.* 

During  the  war  at  least  there  had  been  no 
dearth  of  work,  because  the  labor  market  was  not 
overcrowded.  But  now  that  the  army  of  soldiers 
had  largely  again  changed  into  an  army  of  work- 
ers, the  labor  market  became  so  glutted 
that  large  numbers  of  workingmen  were  unable 
to  secure  employment.  Notwithstanding  the  pre- 
vailing high  prices,  wages  were  reduced,  so  that 
in  the  labor  world  the  need  of  a  stronger  organ- 
ization and  of  new  weapons  in  the  impending 
struggle  began  to  make  itself  felt. 

The  attempt  was  made  to  establish  new  con- 
nections between  the  workingmen  of  the  North 
and  those  of  the  South.  The  national  organiza- 
tions of  the  printers,  the  iron  founders,  the 
blacksmiths  and  machinists,  had  had  branches  in 
the  Southern  States  before  the  war,  which  were 
to  be  revived.  Richard  F.  Trevellick,  of  Detroit, 
President  of  the  Shipbuilders'  Union,  was  sent 
to  organize  new  unions.  But  for  the  time  being 
his  efforts  were  futile;  for  the  moment  no  labor 


*  National  Workman.     New  York,  1866. 


226   LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

movement  was  to  be  thought  of  in  the  land  of  the 
emancipated  slaves. 

In  August,  1866,  Northern  workingmen  met 
at  a  convention  in  Baltimore  which  gave  a  new 
impulse  to  the  eight-hour  movement  and  which 
witnessed  the  foundation  of  the  National  Labor 
Union.  A  lively  agitation  was  inaugurated  for 
shorter  hours,  which  in  1868  led  to  the  passage 
in  Congress  of  an  eight-hour  law,  signed  by 
President  Johnson. 

The  American  workingmen  of  the  North  had 
not  hitherto  entered  into  any  relations  with  the 
International  Workingmen's  Association,  whose 
General  Council  in  London,  during  the  Civil  War, 
had  so  powerfully  championed  the  interests  of 
the  Union  and  persuaded  the  working  class  of 
Europe,  and  especially  of  England,  to  oppose  all 
plots  on  the  part  of  the  ruling  class  in  behalf  of 
the  Southern  rebels.  In  the  first  years  of  its  ex- 
istence the  International  met  with  scant  attention 
on  the  part  of  the  American  workingmen.  The 
war  absorbed  all  their  energies,  and  the  labor 
movement  of  the  country  was  as  yet  too  loosely 
rooted  to  feel  a  desire  of  getting  into  touch  with 
foreign  workingmen. 

But  immediately  after  the  Baltimore  conven- 
tion the  leaders  of  the  American  labor  movement 
turned  their  eyes  towards  London,  intent  on  es- 
tablishing closer  relations  between  the  American 
and  the  English  labor  movements.  On  October 


WHITE    SLAVERY  227 

13,  1866,  there  appeared  in  New  York  the  first 
issue  of  a  weekly  labor  paper,  called  The  National 
Workman  and  devoted  "to  the  interests  of  the 
working  classes."  This  paper,  which  was  pub- 
lished by  a  man  named  Jones,  contained  good  re- 
ports of  the  state  of  the  current  labor  movement. 
Its  platform  consisted  of  the  resolutions  adopted 
by  the  Baltimore  convention ;  it  went  even  beyond 
them  by  forcibly  impressing  the  workingmen 
with  the  need  of  independent  political  action. 
With  its  twelfth  issue  the  paper  was  made  the 
official  organ  of  the  central  labor  body  of  New 
York.  It  was  also  the  organ  of  the  Working- 
men's  Assembly,  the  annual  meeting  of  all  labor 
organizations  of  the  State.  Unfortunately  The 
National  Workman  lived  but  a  short  time.  Its 
last  issue  appeared  on  March  2,  1867. 

This  paper  was  the  first  in  America  to  direct 
the  attention  of  its  readers  to  the  International 
Workingmen's  Association.  The  National 
Workman  reported  not  only  the  proceedings  of 
the  Association  at  the  Geneva  Congress,  but  oc- 
casionally it  also  published  reports  of  the  meet- 
ings of  the  General  Council  in  London  and  the 
resolutions  passed  there.  W.  I.  Jessup,  a  ship 
carpenter,  who  had  been  exceedingly  active  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War  in  his  trade  union,  was  con- 
nected with  it.  Immediately  after  the  Baltimore 
convention,  Jessup  appealed  to  the  general  sec- 
retary of  the  Society  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners 


i 


228        LINCOLN,    LABOR   AND    SLAVERY 

in  London  to  assist  in  establishing  regular  com- 
munication between  the  American  and  the  Eng- 
lish carpenters'  and  joiners'  organizations.  In 
a  letter  dated  October  14,  1866,  the  general 
secretary  of  the  joiners  of  London,  Robert 
Applegarth,*  gladly  agreed  to  the  proposition  and 
at  the  same  time  sent  Jessup  a  number  of  docu- 
ments, adding  the  words : 

"I  have  to  ask:  is  it  not  possible  to  amalga- 
mate your  body  with  ours?  The  Amalgamated 
Society  of  Engineers  have  set  us  the  example. 
Why  not  follow  it?  They  have  branches  at 
Bloomington,  111.,  Buffalo  and  Dunkirk,  N.  Y.. 
Susquehanna,  Pa.,  and  in  New  York  City." 

Robert  Applegarth  was  a  member  of  the  Gen- 
eral Council  of  the  International  Workingmen's 
Association,  and  we  may  assume  that  his  rela- 
tions with  Jessup,  who  in  turn  was  in  communi- 
cation with  Sylvis,  gave  rise  to  the  epistolary  ex- 
change of  ideas  which  now  followed  between 
Sylvis  and  the  General  Council  of  the  Interna- 
tional. 

At  the  second  convention  of  the  National  La- 
bor Union  in  Chicago  in  1867  Jessup  and  Sylvis 
advocated  an  official  alliance  between  this  Amer- 
ican workingmen's  organization  and  the  Interna- 
tional Workingmen's  Association.  They  did  not 


*  In  The  National  Workman  which  published  this  letter 
the  name  is  erroneously  spelled  Applegate. 


WHITE    SLAVERY  229 

succeed  in  effecting  it,  but  the  following  resolu- 
tion was  passed : 

"Whereas,  The  efforts  of  the  working  classes 
of  Europe  to  secure  the  political  power  in  order 
to  improve  their  social  and  other  conditions,  and 
to  throw  off  the  bondage  in  which  they  have  been 
and  are  still  held,  furnish  satisfactory  testimony 
of  the  progress  of  justice,  culture  and  humanity; 

"Be  it  resolved,  That  the  National  Labor 
Union  in  convention  assembled,  hereby  assure 
the  organized  workingmen  of  Europe  of  their 
sympathy  and  co-operation  in  the  struggle  against 
political  and  social  injustice." 

Although  the  National  Labor  Union  of  Amer- 
ica did  not  officially  join  the  International  Work- 
ingmen's  Association,  Sylvis  continued  to,  com- 
municate with  the  General  Council. 

In  the  spring  of  1869  the  tension  between  the 
United  States  and  England,  which  had  been  pro- 
duced by  the  latter's  unfriendly  attitude  during 
the  Civil  War,  reached  such  a  degree  as  to  make 
imminent  a  war  between  the  two  countries.  The 
General  Council  of  the  International  resolved  to 
oppose  the  prevailing  war  sentiment,  and  to  this 
end  sent  an  address  to  Sylvis,  as  the  president  of 
the  National  Labor  Union,  in  which  the  working 
class  of  America  was  exhorted  by  its  attitude  to 
counteract  the  war  cry  of  the  ruling  classes  and 
to  stand  for  the  preservation  of  peace.  This  ad- 


230   LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

dress,  which  was  dated  May  12,  1869,  read  as 
follows : 

'"'Fellow  Workmen : 

"In  the  inaugural  address  of  our  Association 
we  said:  'It  was  not  the  wisdom  of  the  ruling 
classes,  but  the  heroic  resistance  to  their  criminal 
folly  by  the  working  classes  of  England  that 
saved  the  West  of  Europe  from  plunging  head- 
long into  an  infamous  crusade  for  the  perpetua- 
tion and  propagation  of  slavery  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic.'  It  is  now  your  turn  to  prevent 
a  war  whose  direct  result  would  be  to  throw 
back,  for  an  indefinite  period,  the  rising  labor 
movement  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

"We  need  hardly  tell  you  that  there  are 
European  powers  anxiously  engaged  in  foment- 
ing a  war  between  the  United  States  and  Eng- 
land. A  glance  at  the  statistics  of  commerce 
shows  that  the  Russian  export  of  raw  products 
—and  Russia  has  nothing  else  to  export — was 
giving  way  to  American  competition  when  the 
Civil  War  tipped  the  scales.  To  turn  the  Amer- 
ican ploughshare  into  a  sword  would  at  this  time 
save  from  impending  bankruptcy  a  power  whom 
your  republican  statesmen  in  their  wisdom  had 
chosen  for  their  confidential  adviser.  But  dis- 
regarding the  particular  interests  of  this  or  that 
government,  is  it  not  in  the  general  interest  of 
our  oppressors  to  disturb  by  a  war  the  move- 


WHITE    SLAVERY  231 

ment  of  rapidly  extending  international  co-opera- 
tion? 

"In  our  congratulatory  address  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
on  the  occasion  of  his  re-election  to  the  Presi- 
dency we  expressed  it  as  our  conviction  that  the 
Civil  War  would  prove  to  be  as  important  to 
the  progress  of  the  working  class  as  the  War  of 
Independence  has  been  to  the  elevation  of  the 
middle  class.  And  the  successful  close  of  the  war 
against  slavery  has  indeed  inaugurated  a  new  era 
in  the  annals  of  the  working  class.  In  the  United 
States  itself  an  independent  labor  movement  has 
since  arisen  which  the  old  parties  and  the  pro- 
fessional politicians  view  with  distrust.  But  to 
bear  fruit  it  needs  years  of  peace.  To  suppress 
it,  a  war  between  the  United  States  and  England 
would  be  the  sure  means. 

"The  immediate  tangible  result  of  the  Civil 
War  was  of  course  a  deterioration  of  the  con- 
dition of  American  workingmen.  Both  in  the 
United  States  and  in  Europe  the  colossal  burden 
of  a  public  debt  was  shifted  from  hand  to  hand 
in  order  to  settle  it  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
working  class.  The  prices  of  necessaries,  re- 
marks one  of  your  statesmen,  have  risen  78  per 
cent,  since  1860,  while  the  wages  of  simple  man- 
ual labor  have  risen  50  and  those  of  skilled  labor 
60  per  cent.  'Pauperism,'  he  complains,  'is  in- 
creasing in  America  more  rapidly  than  popula- 
tion.' Moreover  the  sufferings  of  the  working 


232   LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

class  are  in  glaring  contrast  to  the  new-fangled 
luxury  of  financial  aristocrats,  shoddy  aristocrats 
and  other  vermin  bred  by  war.  Still  the  Civil 
War  offered  a  compensation  in  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves  and  the  impulse  which  it  thereby  gave 
to  your  own  class  movement.  Another  war,  not 
sanctified  by  a  sublime  aim  or  a  social  necessity, 
but  like  the  wars  of  the  Old  World,  would  forge 
chains  for  the  free  workingmen  instead  of  sun- 
dering those  of  the  slave.  The  accumulated 
misery  which  it  would  leave  in  its  wake  would 
furnish  your  capitalists  at  once  with  the  motive 
and  the  means  of  separating  the  working  class 
from  their  courageous  and  just  aspirations  by  the 
soulless  sword  of  a  standing  army.  Yours,  then, 
is  the  glorious  task  of  seeing  to  it  that  at  last 
the  working  class  shall  enter  upon  the  scene  of 
history,  no  longer  as  a  servile  following,  but  as 
an  independent  power,  as  a  power  imbued  with 
a  sense  of  its  responsibility  and  capable  of  com- 
manding peace  where  their  would-be  masters 
cry  war. 

"In  the  name  of  the  International  Working- 
men's  Association. 

"For  Great  Britain:  R,  Applegarth,  carpenter; 
M.  D.  Brown,  mechanic;  J.  Buckley,  painter;  J. 
Hales,  rubber  weaver;  Harriet  Law;  B.  Lucraft, 
chairmaker;  J.  Milner,  tailor;  G.  Odger,  shoe- 
maker; J.  Ross,  bootlegmaker ;  R.  Shaw,  painter; 


WHITE    SLAVERY  233 

Cowell  Stepney;    J.    Warren,    satchelmaker ;  J. 
Weston,  bannistermaker. 

"For  France:  E.  Dupont,  instrument  maker; 
Jules  Johannard,  Paul  Lafargue. 

"For  Germany:  J.  G.  Eccarius,  tailor;  F.  Less- 
ner,  tailor;  W.  Limburg,  shoemaker;  Karl  Marx. 
"For  Switzerland:    H.  Jung,  watchmaker;  A. 
Miiller,  watchmaker. 

"For  Belgium:   P.  Bernard,  painter. 
"For  Denmark:    I.  Cohn,  cigarmaker. 
"For  Poland :  A.  Idbricki,  compositor. 

"BENJAMIN  LUCRAFT,   President. 
"COWELL   STEPNEY,   Treasurer. 
"J.  GEORG  ECCARIUS, 

General  Secretary. 
"London,  May  12th,  1869." 

Sylvis,  as  president  of  the  National  Labor 
Union,  made  the  following  acknowledgment  of 
the  receipt  of  this  Address  to  the  General 
Council  of  the  International  Workingmen's  As- 
sociation : 

"Philadelphia,  May  26,  1869. 

"Your  letter  of  the  12th  instant,  together  with 
the  Address,  came  to  hand  yesterday;  I  am 
pleased  to  get  such  kind  words  from  fellow-work- 
men on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean.  We  have 
a  common  cause.  It  is  the  war  of  poverty  against 
wealth.  In  all  parts  of  the  world  labor  occupies 
the  same  lowly  position,  capital  is  everywhere  the 
same  tyrant.  Therefore  I  say  we  have  a  com- 


234   LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

mon  cause.  In  the  name  of  the  workingmen  of 
the  United  States,  I  extend  to  you,  and  through 
you  to  all  those  whom  you  represent,  and  to  all 
the  downtrodden  and  oppressed  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  labor  in  Europe  the  right  hand  of 
fellowship.  Continue  in  the  good  work  that 
you  have  undertaken,  until  a  glorious  suc- 
cess shall  crown  your  efforts!  Such  is  our  re- 
solve. Our  recent  war  has  led  to  the  foundation 
of  the  most  infamous  money  aristocracy  of  the 
earth.  This  money  power  saps  the  very  life  of 
the  people.  We  have  declared  war  against  it  and 
we  are  determined  to  conquer — by  means  of  the 
ballot,  if  possible — if  not,  we  shall  resort  to  more 
serious  means.  A  little  blood-letting  is  neces- 
sary in  desperate  cases." 

The  Address  of  the  General  Council  of  the  In- 
ternational to  the  American  workingmen  urging 
them  to  oppose  a  war  with  England  was  the  last 
manifestation  of  this  body  relating  to  the  North 
American  struggles  and  their  consequences  grow- 
ing out  of  Negro  slavery. 

The  economic  disadvantage  which  the  Civil 
War  imposed  upon  the  American  workingmen 
caused  the  latter  for  many  years  yet  to  ponder 
the  subject  of  slavery,  and  to  institute  com- 
parisons between  the  prevailing  white  .slavery  and 
the  black  slavery  that  had  been  abolished.  In  a 
speech  delivered  by  Sylvis  in  September,  1868, 


WHITE    SLAVERY  235 

at  Sunbury,  Pa.,  these  two  kinds  of  slavery  were 
referred  to  in  the  following  comments : 

"Within  the  last  seven  years  we  have  passed 
through  the  most  gigantic  war  the  world  ever 
saw — a  rebellion  such  as  no  other  government 
could  have  successfully  combated.  Whatever  our 
opinions  may  be  as  to  immediate  causes  of  the 
war,  we  can  all  agree  that  human  slavery  (prop- 
erty in  man)  was  the  first  great  cause;  and  from 
the  day  that  the  first  gun  was  fired,  it  was  my 
earnest  hope  that  the  war  might  not  end  until 
slavery  ended  with  it.  No  man  in  America  re- 
joiced more  than  I  at  the  downfall  of  Negro 
slavery.  But  when  the  shackles  fell  from  the 
limbs  of  those  four  millions  of  blacks,  it  did  not 
make  them  free  men;  it  simply  transferred  them 
from  one  condition  of  slavery  to  another;  it 
placed  them  upon  the  platform  of  the  white 
workingmen,  and  made  all  slaves  together.  I  do 
not  mean  that  freeing  the  Negro  enslaved  the 
white ;  I  mean  that  we  were  slaves  before,  always 
have  been,  and  that  the  abolition  of  the  right  of 
property  in  man  added  four  millions  of  black 
slaves  to  the  white  slaves  of  the  country.  We  are 
now  all  one  family  of  slaves  together,  and  the 
labor  reform  movement  is  a  second  emancipation 
proclamation."* 

And  shortly  thereafter,  on  November  16,  1868, 
Sylvis  declared  in  a  circular  published  by  him : 


*  Sylvis,  p.  232  ff. 


236   LINCOLN,  LABOR  AND  SLAVERY 

"Our  people  are  being  divided  into  two  classes 
— the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  producers  and  the 
non-producers;  the  busy  bees  in  the  industrial 
hive,  and  the  idle  drones  who  fatten  upon  what 
they  steal.  The  working-people  of  our  nation, 
white  and  black,  male  and  female,  are  sinking  to 
a  condition  of  serfdom.  Even  now  a  slavery 
exists  in  our  land  worse  than  ever  existed  under 
the  old  slave  system/'* 


Negro  slavery  was  put  down  on  the  bloody 
battlefields  of  the  South,  in  no  small  degree,  as 
we  have  seen,  by  the  assistance  of  the  very  work- 
ingmen  who  had  reason  to  complain  of  the  white 
slavery  under  which  they  groaned.  But  their 
own  slavery  they  have  not  yet  been  able  to  put 
down.  History  does  not  proceed  by  leaps  and 
bounds,  and  as  the  time  had  to  be  ripe  and  the 
way  had  to  be  cleared  by  economic  development 
for  the  abolition  of  Negro  slavery,  so  the  time 
will  have  to  be  ripe  and  the  way  will  have  to  be 
cleared  by  economic  development  for  the 
abolition  of  wage  slavery. 

Will  the  bloody  spectacle  be  repeated  on  a 
larger  scale — the  bloody  spectacle  of  the 
struggles  for  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  and 
the  restoration  of  the  Union  in  the  years  from 


*  Sylvis,  p.  82. 


WHITE    SLAVERY  237 

1861  to  1865?  Will  the  peaceful  and  orderly 
victory  of  the  working  class  at  the  polls — an 
event  as  sure  to  occur  as  was  the  victory  of  the 
Republican  party  in  1860 — be  followed  by  armed 
revolt  on  the  part  of  the  industrial  overlords  and 
their  Conscripts?  Will  they,  as  did  the  slave- 
holders of  1860,  strive  to  disrupt  the  Union  and 
to  overthrow  popular  government?  One  is  al- 
most tempted  to  believe  it  when  one  considers  the 
bearing  of  the  ruling  classes  who,  stubborn  and 
haughty  as  the  Southern  oligarchy  in  the  past, 
oppose  all  change  in  the  constitution  of  society 
and  refuse  to  yield  even  the  least  of  their  priv- 
ileges. But  then  a  nation  which  has  lived  through 
one  such  crisis  may  be  expected  to  guard  against 
its  repetition. 


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